


TIES THAT BIND

by ravenromance27



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Gen Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 74,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5044594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenromance27/pseuds/ravenromance27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. What would've happened if during that one incident when Nono came to visit the choices he made did more than just seal off Tsuna's flame? How would Sawada Tsunayoshi's life have changed if that one action triggered an entirely different path for the young would-be Decimo? And how would Reborn react to him then when he conceals a secret no one ever dreamed of?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. INIZIO

**Author's Note:**

> Authors Note:  
> For far too long and for far too many days I have labored under the despair of thinking that I might never write again. A few days ago I spent a sleepless night staring at this particular show and wondering why I like it so when I've never been one for the idea of organized crimes and fight scenes. But something inside my head wanted to explore their humanity more than their special skills and so here I am. A willing slave to a fickle Muse that wanted its say and its day in the sun. I hope you will enjoy this tale as much as I have enjoyed the exhilarating rush of creating.  
> KHR belongs to the genius that is Akira Amano and I humbly bow to this mangaka's undeniable talent.
> 
> 2013 Update: I guess I'm kinda tweaking the story a bit. I want it to feel as real as I can possibly make it, knowing the biggest challenge I would have for me, other than the battles, will be making all the characters human and relatable.
> 
> 2014: This work is still unbeta-ed or even edited by a pair of eyes not my own. I am fine tuning some parts. The good part is that after a period of not knowing how to go on, I found a new vein of idea that I am willing to explore. Wish me luck. I think I'm really gonna need it.
> 
> 2015: Revisions, et al.

**Author’s Note:**

For far too long and for far too many days I have labored under the despair of thinking that I might never write again. A few days ago I spent a sleepless night staring at this particular show and wondering why I like it so when I've never been one for the idea of organized crimes and fight scenes. But something inside my head wanted to explore their humanity more than their special skills and so here I am. A willing slave to a fickle Muse that wanted its say and its day in the sun. I hope you will enjoy this tale as much as I have enjoyed the exhilarating rush of creating.

KHR belongs to the genius that is Akira Amano and I humbly bow to this mangaka's undeniable talent.

2013 Update:  
I guess I'm kinda tweaking the story a bit. I want it to feel as real as I can possibly make it, knowing the biggest challenge I would have for me, other than the battles, will be making all the characters appear human and relatable.

2014 Update:  
This work is still unbeta-ed or even edited by a pair of eyes not my own. I am fine tuning some parts. The good part is that after a period of not knowing how to go on, I found a new vein of idea that I am willing to explore. Wish me luck. I think I'm really gonna need it.

**2017 Update: Revisions, et al.**

* * *

 

**Chapter I:**   
**_INIZIO_**

**_"What fates impose, that men must needs abide;_ **   
**_It boots not to resist both wind and tide"_ **   
_\- William Shakespeare_

* * *

 

**Timoteo POV**

He understands the risks. He told himself that he did. That he understands far better than anyone else the risks he was about to take. That is why he dared to travel alone—leaving behind the usual trappings and entourage that came with his position and denied anyone the chance to accompany him so that he could finally have the time to think and bask in the anonymity of his old friend's home in the East.

He came East hoping to find some measure of peace before committing a lifetime of service and commitment to the fickle unforgiving whims of blind fate. He desired to preserve a mere moment of peace in order to organize his thoughts and calm the tumultuous chaos of his heart. A measure of forgiveness for walking away from everything his entire lineage has done, sacrificed and preserved for the past four centuries.

He came hoping to ease the burdens of a sorrowful heart and found hope so pure that the reality of it all but consumed him. For a moment—a moment alone—he allowed himself to dream of the kind of future that might come to his beloved Famiglia if he dare permit himself to seize the opportunity that fickle fate and cruel destiny has dangled in front of him now and forget everything that he knows. To simply open his hands and let the four winds take the decision from him and let the cards fall where they might. For a moment he dared—until the cold, unceasing sense of truth jerked him back into full awareness once more.

_But he couldn't—wouldn't be so selfless. He has no right or room for it._

He couldn't afford such selfishness anymore. A lifetime he has squandered away being frivolous and catered to nothing and no one save the whims and caprices and demands of his Famiglia.

_No…there would be no more free passes for him. No more loopholes or last minute miracles._

He had used it all up. Used up all the free passes fate and life has given him. There would be no more—he has used up whatever invisible tab he had with any higher power has run its course—there was no more credit owed to him. Moreover, taking advantage of the boon he has unwittingly discovered would make him break a promise he made long ago. A solemn vow made to a man he already owes far too much to ever repay. A man he had whom, for all intents and purpose, stolen from. It wouldn't be fair to take away anything further from someone who already gave up more than anyone. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be just.

_And yet that is exactly what he has done._

Now, however, is not the time to speculate...now is not the time for wishes and naive fantasies...now is not the time for whimsical yearnings that could never be is the time for decisions…for facing the music and paying his debt. Now is the time for actions. Now is the time for settling the final score.

So with a heavy heart and a conciliatory prayer to whatever higher power it was that oversaw his ravaged, uneasy soul he shook himself awake from the fantasy of might-have-beens and could-have-beens.

Or at least that's what he told himself. But Timoteo was but a man—a man on the verge of losing everything and desperate men will attempt anything to stave off the inevitable. Even contemplate and consider betraying someone that he promised fidelity and loyalty long ago. Even if that self-same someone was one whom he loved and respected like a blood-brother. Despite the stab of remorse and regret that flickered like a sudden lightning through his soul he knows that he had but a single recourse left to take. The only path he could take with any hopes of salvation in the offing.

_The final gamble._

And so that morning, he took the first painful step towards salvation. He seized with both hands the bargain that Fate tempted him with and swallowed back the bitter tears of loss and fear. With a hand scarred by the constant tests of time and trembling with loss, he reached out and touched that faint spark that burned merrily like a small cheery bonfire in front of him. He watched for a moment as the flickering flames sway gently as if buffeted by an invisible benevolent hand before he sealed the warm lambent glow beneath his own much stronger flame consigning his youngest descendant’s life to a power even more unforgiving than those rules that governed their own dark world—Destiny.

In the very depths of his soul he wished—prayed, supplicated—shamelessly pleaded just this once, for whatever deity that could hear him to play fair and have him redeem just one—this one—the very last bearer of the last pure Vongola blood—in his own way. He sealed the luminous flames in his young descendant's soul and wished him the possibility of a life free from their blood's burden and unpredictable gifts. But while he did what he had to do in order to protect that unexpectedly fragile innocent young soul that he found, he couldn't help but feel the slightest shiver of doubt.

_He was tampering with the power of something as unforgiving and fickle as Fate._

He could never be sure whenever he dealt with matters of chance—even more so when it involves people from their volatile bloodline. That, more than anything, made him doubt his own decisions despite the fact that for once he allowed his intuition to reign over and just followed it through. Still, he couldn't help but wonder if he had unwittingly jump-started the unforgiving hands of fate to move towards a far different path than the one he intended. He could only pray that whatever sliver of luck or that famed hyper-intuition that their family relied upon still worked in his favor.  
He wished he could offer the whims of fate a fitting sacrifice to guarantee his wish but he knows well enough that his own stained soul poses no allure. There was nothing left in him worthwhile that he could offer save his own burning desire for absolution. Save his earnest desire to see this one final selfish decision through. Oh how he desperately yearned to have his last selfish wish could be granted if nothing else so that he could face his death without another mark on his already blackened heart and bloodied soul.

If he could've done it—he would've gladly traded off the famed intuition so prized in his Famiglia and in his world. But even he is well aware that unlike his predecessors, he was not born with that rarest of the Vongola blood-gifts. He was not born with the full measure of the Vongola Hyper Intuition. The gift that made Primo such a legendary figure and predecessor has been lost with every succeeding generation that followed, diluting with every succeeding sire and heir, weakening its potency until all that they possessed were the sometimes faint flicker that comes when immediate danger crept close enough to threaten the existence of the Famiglia.

**_Blood will always tell._ **

And the blood flowing through his was nothing like Primo’s. Truth be known, none of the succeeding Heads had more than a tiny bit of his blood and of all HIS descendant, he was by far the weakest, weaker even more so than Settimo was who had had to rely on his guns to compress his less-than-stellar flames into something that could be used as a weapon.

His only consolation was that he was born in a more peaceful era-not bloodshed-free-no, never that, not for one inheriting a 400-year old Famiglia but infinitely safer and more stable than any single era since their Famiglia's founding. He wouldn't have been able to survive as long as he had otherwise.

However, the tenuous peace he has precariously kept and protected did not come without a price. The sacrifice he has had to make has yet to bear fruit. For the continuance of his centuries-old name he had had to live with the heartbreak of losing everything he has ever loved. He has had to watch as his beloved wife was lost to a disease that all his money, his influence, his power couldn't overcome. He has had to stand by and watch as fate and the dark miasma of ambition and machinations of men stole away his precious sons one by one. He has had to harden his heart and bear the agony of being misunderstood by the child he had hoped would continue protecting the family he cared for.

For the continued existence of his family he had sacrificed his own flesh and blood. To secure the continuance of the Vongola name he forced himself to accept violence, betrayal, death and heartache over and over again. For the Famiglia he has inherited he has had to be strong, to be steadfast, and to lead despite every roadblock and every setback. But even a leader who knows all these and has made peace with it, time and conviction can only do so much. And Timoteo knows better than most that he is nearing his end—both as a leader and as a being retained by his mortal coils.  
He had so little time left and there were still too many things left to do…

He has grown inured to his duties but he tires of them now. Above all else, the constant battles were wearing him down. Since inheriting his title all he had ever done was to wage war and win. The endless years, months and days that he had to spent fighting. And he certainly had to fight and keep on fighting—men, women, governments, organizations, even his own Famiglia, at times. He had to fight—god knows he'd had to fight from the moment he understood what being born into his bloodline meant. He had to fight to gain his post, had to fight to protect those under his charge, had to fight to keep what was rightfully his, had to fight every upstart new Famiglia that were no better than thugs for hire that wanted a jumpstart in their status in the ladder of infamy by trying to bump off the strongest name they knew which in this case happened to be his.

The beep of the intercom gave him a startling but welcome reprieve from the dark nature of his thought. He gladly left behind the dark musing of his past, tucking the painful reverie where they belong—in the dark recesses of his soul where the rest of his dreams also reside and focused on the matter at hand. He reached out and touched one of the many buttons on his personal console.

**'Si?'**   
**'Mi scusi Nono, ci sarà lo sbarco 30 minuti.'**   
**'Grazie.'**   
**'La vettura sarà in attesa per voi. Si sarà bisogno di altro?'**   
**'No, che sarà tutto.'**

A sigh went past his lips and he tried to put the doubt and anxiety of the last few hours out of his mind. He looked out the tiny window and tried to enjoy the oncoming view of his homeland from his elevated seat. He has missed the verdant hills and valleys of his home, his time now being spent ever more frequently inside the protected walls of his mansion. His glimpses of the countryside has been confined to his lush gardens and the occasional drive from and to yet another meeting, yet another negotiation but even the wide blue skies that his windows offered felt limited now—constricted the same way he would occasionally find himself to feel.

With a final shake of his head he closed his eyes briefly before opening them once more to gaze at the sky now bathed in golden rainbow of hues. Its brilliant display of colors drenching the eternal images of his home in all its gilded splendor, its ethereal beauty soothing the churning disquiet inside of him like it has always done. He took a deep breath and consigned his fears to the warm Italian dusk.

_He made the right choice._

In sealing off the child's flame he was saving his oldest friend's child from a future filled with nothing but heartache. And since he could give him little else but a stay of execution for however many years his leadership could still afford him—there was that thought to soothe him in the coming days. He has done the unforgivable. All that he could do now is wait and contemplate what his machinations had bought him.

_**His childhood will be one of joy and peace.** _

The boy will lead a life far from the maddening, tumultuous and blood-drenched world where he and his sire had been forced to be in. His growing up years will be normal, safe and without the pain of attacks from those around him. He will not live with the constant flow and ebb of lies and deceit from those that seek to ravage his inheritance from all sides, waiting for any moment of weakness on his part so that they pillage and steal what was never theirs.

He will not have to learn how to manipulate those around him through cunning and trickery, bracing himself from the constant menace of treachery from those that would smile at him even as they plot his demise and the destruction of everything he held dear. He will never have to stoop to controlling others through volatile exertions of force just to ensure his continued survival.

_**He will live in the light.** _

He will live a far safer existence without the overwhelming shadow that will always be cast on him by merely possessing their particular gift. He will not have the burden of expectation and inheritance and succession hanging over his head like a proverbial Sword of Damocles all the time taking away from him any semblance of free will.

He will be safe from those that would stoop to use a child to get their own means never caring that they would destroy lives along the way. He will not live in constant heartache and fear of what being one of them means. He will be free from the despair of distrust and suspicion attached to those that came from their shadowed world. He will not grow up living under the burden of his Famiglia's blood-soaked reputation.

He will never know the pressure of expectation from a world that demands too much and gives hardly anything worthwhile in return. He will never need to know how to exist with nothing but the abyss of shadows to aid everyday he draws breath. He will never have to live from day to day with the threat of death and pain and betrayal fueling his nightmares and tainting his memories. He will never need to don a mask of strength and infallibility—never showing his true face and nature, to learn how to live all his life concealed behind the cold comforting façade of stone walls and the indifferent of mask shadows and darkness because that's the only place he would ever feel safe.

_**He will never be lonely.** _

He will have friends—not allies bought by a show of force or gained through mergers intended for financial or political gain. He would not have to settle for servants and soldiers that turn too easily and too readily into enemies in the ever-changing seas of duplicity and covenants and contracts that regulate their world.

He will be wanted for himself—for nothing more than being a simple, normal boy-not an heir, not a successor, not even a criminal in the making. He would not play the role of a fool or a king or both. He will be himself and that will be enough.

**_He will never know what it means not to be free._ **

He will be free of the stigma of being born with their blood, their legacy, their name. He will never be ostracized by those around him for being what he was and for being born with a legacy he didn't choose and a history he couldn’t understand. He will not be condemned to live up to his predecessors' achievements and accomplishments, chained and held back by centuries-old traditions all in the hopes of preserving their infamous name, their reputation; forced to endure being burdened with their reputation and branded by their sins. He will not be held up to the standards of the biased few who would sooner turn their backs on him as betray him just because of the name he wears and the blood that flows in him.

**_He will be made safe and free and normal for however long the power this cursed throne holds._ **

If he could do only one good in his life but this, if fate could only allow him one chance for repentance, then he, Timoteo, Ninth Head of the Vongola Famiglia will see this one thing done. He would trade his own damaged, blood-stained soul and all the souls of those who came before him to insure that the youngest and last blood-kin of their family remained innocent, untainted and free.

But a man like Timoteo should have known better. He should have realized long ago that Fate hardly fights fair. He should have known that painful truth when he made that Faustian bargain long ago that Fate wasn't willing to compromise or allow him to renege on.

_Not when it comes to power. Not when it comes to balancing the accounts of those that play a part in Fate's design._

There was nothing he could’ve done—nothing at all—not even the offering of a heartfelt prayer from a repentant soul like his, not even the forlorn hope of nine generations of blood-stained hands seeking salvation—could pay the price for one destiny-bound child that Fate had already claimed for its own. Especially not when Fate had made up its mind and chosen its Champion.

 

**Title Translation: INIZIO = _"THE START/ BEGINNING"_**


	2. ATTO PRIMO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:
> 
> 2013 Update: Never realized how much I wanted to tweak this little thing. Usual disclaimers regarding my improbable ownership of KHR which in its entirety belong to the venerable Akira Amano.
> 
> 11-08-13 – How come tweaking things never ends when one writes? Seriously. I mean everything I re-read what I wrote, I end up tweaking here and there and then wondering if maybe there's something else I could have done with it.
> 
> 10-11-14 – Wow…it has been a long while now, hasn't it? Gods what was I thinking?
> 
> 2015: I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking—I’m kind of worried that I might’ve been possessed at the time. How the hell did I manage to write this convoluted mess again?  
> 2017- Have I mentioned yet how painstakingly tedious rereading things can become when you start nitpicking your own work?

**TIES THAT BIND**

_Chapter II:_ _ATTO PRIMO_

  
**_"People often meet their destiny on the road they take to avoid it"_**  
_\- French Proverb_

* * *

**Tsunayoshi POV**

  
**His childhood will be one of joy and peace...**

  
_His mother was crying again._

They were quiet tears…clearly not intended to be heard by any one at all… they were muffled, just like all the ones she has been shedding ever since he was old enough to remember the sight and sound but young enough to still wonder and worry at its cause.

_But_ _he hears them all the same…he has always heard them…seen them…felt them… always…he has always felt her pain and it made remembering worse. Made knowing even more painful because then he couldn’t escape them. They were always there inside him…reminding him._

They were the kind of tears that tore him up inside and made him feel so utterly helpless… unable to do anything but clumsily wipe her tears away with small hands and fingers soaked with tears of his own. Her tears made him feel useless—like he should know better— _do better_ but so far he hadn't been able to figure what it was that he was supposed to do. A decade has passed and he still doesn't know what to do. A decade has passed and he could still hear her tears…see her tears…feel them soak the tips of his fingers and run down his tiny hands and wrists.

_Her tears have stained his hands for so long he wonders if anyone else, other than him, could see them._

Even now that he's already fifteen; the sight of her tears had a way of making him feel and recall that he  was nothing more than a little helpless, pathetic child—too silly, too stupid and too inadequate to do more than simply be there for his grieving mother. And with her tears came the familiar surge of anger and resentment because this time…unlike all the other times before, he knows he can do little to stay the flow of her pain. Even when this time around he knows enough to understand what caused her tears there was nothing he could do but be physically there for her.

 

Knowing the truth behind her tears didn't give him any comfort any more than hiding it had given his mother. Her tears continued to flow and his frustration and helplessness grew into a deep gaping hole inside of him knowing that there was still nothing he could do.

_He **left**. He left **her**. He left her **again.**_

And yes, **HER** … _he left_ _her_. _Her_ _—_ not _them_ _,_ not _him_ _._ _He left her_ _._

He had made _that_ distinction long ago—had to because he knew he couldn't afford to get hurt any further. His mother's pain was enough—and even that he had to struggle to control. He couldn't allow himself to feel what he did back when he was still young enough to have his heart contract and bleed with the pain of being left behind. When he was young enough to allow doubt to assail him and made him wonder if he was the cause for his mother's loneliness.

 

For the longest time since he could remember he wondered long and hard if he was the reason why the man he called father and his mother called husband wouldn't stay-despite her devotion and her love. He still wasn't fully convinced that his conviction wasn't true.

**_The man his mother married and who sired half his being was an utter and complete bastard_** _._  

 

That fact was proven by every single drop of tears that ever welled in his beloved mother’s eyes and there was nothing in Heaven or Hell that would convince him otherwise. His mother's husband _certainly_ never provided any answer that he could be satisfied with.

He had long banished from his heart the pain of expecting anything from the man that he owed a genetic debt to. The man who came into his and his mother's house like a hurricane, bringing noise and chaos and uncertainty one moment and then leaving behind him without so much as a single backward glance a trail of desolation and despair. He had long made his peace with the sense of betrayal that still stabs him every time he would see that tell-tale redness rim her eyes after that man's periodic intrusion into their lives. He has inured himself to the thankless chore of expecting that this time it would be different, that this time, he might finally come home to stay.

 

_That man comes…and after a predictably short time, that man goes away like he was wont to do…_

 

And through it all she looks at the man she married and fathered her son with a smile that makes her eyes darken with feeling and Tsunayoshi would find his stomach clenching in tension and frustration. His entire mouth would be tainted with the distinctive sour aftertaste of acid and blood that always accompanied the man’s visit. The taste in his mouth usually lingered until whatever spark ebbed from his mother’s gaze and they both reset into a state of familiar serenity once more.

 

That man comes like the proverbial storm and when he leaves, as he inevitably does each and every single time—they must shore up their hearts and assess the degree of devastation he had left behind in his wake. They are the ones who had to pick up the broken pieces of each other that he thoughtlessly cast aside like so much worthless debris, never once looking back, never once wondering what kind of renewed hell he cast his wife soul into...never even thinking of what new scar he has carved into his own son’s already festering heart.

 

What hurts him the most though is _not_ that man's predictable pattern—no, that one he wasn’t too stupid or confused to understand. That—he understood all too well. But what he never reconciled nor understood despite the knowledge was that there was little he could do to prevent it.

 

It made him wish in some dark, rarely explored corner of his heart that he wouldn't come around anymore…that he would simply leave one day and finally forget that he has the option of coming back. _That he would finally say his goodbyes and be done with it—so that they too, could say their farewells and move past it once and for all._ He knows that he shouldn't wish for a thing but for far longer than he could remember his father's presence had been nothing more than a vague montage of half remembered memories and childhood recollections that reassert itself every once in a while—an occurrence rarer than a blue moon or even a red eclipse.

 

_The man his mother insisted he respect and love, the man who she constantly reminded him was his sire was more a half-forgotten memory recalled vaguely when asked rather than a solid, unassailable fact._

 

For the longest time while he was younger he could almost believe that the man with the appellation ' _Father_ ' was a figment of his and his mother's imagination, created to temporarily ease the curious ache and emptiness that would sometimes visit both their lives especially during those days when the casual cruelty of childish words wounded him whenever the question of his father’s whereabouts were raised.

 

He recalls the first time he gave voice to the thought of forbidding the man from coming back, recalls vividly the way he pointed out that she is dying a little bit inside whenever that man would leave and that she will just start crying every night again until the hurting and longing subsides long enough to make her forget and start living again…

 

The tears that flowed that day still scalds his skin no matter how many years had passed...the burning heat of them shaming him, even as his heart rebels at the silent censure. He has done what that man had done countless time before—he has hurt his mother—and the humiliating realization was the bitterest truth he had ever admitted to himself.

 

And so he had resigned himself to not reacting to the taunts the same way he had resigned himself to forget that such a figure even existed in his world except when his mother’s joy is too vibrant for him to deny even as it stabs into his heart. At least, until he grew old enough to understand that his sporadic appearances into their lives rarely—if at all—caused him no ache…that his presence did to ease or affect him. That’s when he finally recognized that the man’s visits continued only to wound _his_ mother with his leave-taking, lacerating her heart just a little deeper, stealing just a little bit more of her soul.

 

_That was also the moment the smallest sliver of something dark slithered into his heart and started to flicker into being... He vowed to find a way to destroy the man as soon as he had the chance. He has allowed the man to hurt his mother for far too long._ **But he will allow it** **no further** _. Someday, he will have the means and opportunity to pay the man back with every second of pain and misery he had so generously bestowed on his long-suffering devoted wife._

 

* * *

 

**He will live in the light…**

_One…no, two…a few more steps…surely less than a hundred…_

_It can't be more than that…_

_Is the road getting longer…?_

_No, that's impossible…it doesn't matter…I still have to go home…_

_She’s waiting for me and I can't—I won't make her wait…she waits enough…_

_Home_ _… I'm going home…That's all that matter…I'll be safe…home…is…safe…_

_Mom…she'll be there…Mom will be…there…I will be with Mom and she'll make things all better…_

_Take care… she’ll take care of the gashes and the lashes and she'll-!_

**_Worry_ ** **_._ **

_She'll ask me questions and I can't lie and she will be worried. She'll be worried. I can't make her worry about me…she'll be sad if I don't say anything and I don't want her to be sad over me too…_

He can't go home…not like this…not looking like this…she'll worry and she'll be sad again and he can't—won't let himself cause her even more anxiety. He can't be like him…he **_will not_** _**be—refused—**_ to be like him…he won't give her any more reason to cry. _She's had enough of that_ … enough reasons to cry and he won't add more to the growing list of things that caused her pain and concern.

  _I can take care of this…I **will** take care of this…somehow…she doesn’t have to know…she never should…_

A quick harried inspection, that's all that it took for him to see his current state through her eyes—his clothes were rumpled and dirty from the tight grasp of big, fumbling hands that shook him for being where he wasn't supposed to be. His knees were scrapped, one of the cuts deeper than the rest and is starting to bleed again…he could feel his knees trembling from the strain of keeping himself upright…his palms were stinging from cuts that marked them with the fall he took when those boys pushed him out of the way as he tried to get up on the teeter-totter. His arms were sore and he would no doubt be sporting a colorful array of finger marks on them in the days to come. His chest hurt too, and that means there might be a bruise there somewhere but that would fade by tomorrow once he takes a bath later tonight…

  _Thank goodness I never seem to bruise for long or Mom would_ really _have something to worry about…_

He leaned against the nearby wall and slowly slid down, legs splayed in front of him, his knees throbbing and trembling far too much for him to exert any further effort to tuck them tidily into his body, his hands falling to his side, scratched raw and already filled with small cuts and deeper lacerations from his poor attempt earlier to break his fall, blood pooling into tiny rivulets along the many tiny creases in his palm.

  _I can't go home…not yet…I need to clean up…I need…._

_A place to clean up._ Somewhere near, somewhere like… _the park_! _Yes, The park… there_ … the park has restrooms…with water and sinks and soap…he could get cleaned up… Yes….that's it…The park will work…he could think while he cleaned up…he'll be late but that's okay…the park will be a good excuse…he can tell her that he fell…it won't be a complete lie… _then she wouldn't have to know…she wouldn't have to be sad and cry…_ she'll shake her head and smile at him and tell him that he shouldn't be so clumsy all the time and then she'll forget about him and she'll be okay….

  _Yeah…the park…will work…_

Now if he could only find the strength to stand up again and get going then everything will be fine. For now, at least. He’ll be fine. Not always, not right now but he’ll get there. He’ll also remember to avoid the playground for the foreseeable future. The pain wasn’t worth the fun. Maybe he’ll try the library tomorrow. Yes, the library would be fine. _At least the books wouldn’t try to hurt him and they certainly wouldn’t laugh at him while they do that._

* * *

**He will never be lonely.**

_A box…? No…it's a closet this time...the supply closet, yes that's where I am…_

He wonders what other place they would find to stick him in…he's so small that his size never seemed to create any problems for his tormentors only a seemingly endless list of options. In some cosmic sense of injustice, the school seemed ready made with available blind spots and convenient nooks that worked so well with whatever the bullies wanted and needed.

  _At least the school doesn't have lockers big enough to stick a person in or else I really would be in trouble then._

He recalls seeming the huge lockers that seemed to be the norm in American films and shuddered at the possibilities that would’ve afforded his tormentors on a daily basis. He guesses that he should be thankful for small mercies.  That and the fact that the janitor is thankfully professional enough not to leave the utility closet unlocked at all time. He is well aware that it could've been worse. The garbage shoot isn't accessible from the student's area and he could always find some escape from the bullies when he reaches the roof— _if_ he's lucky enough to reach it in time. There are monitors from the Disciplinary Committee patrolling the corridors most hour of class and the teachers still notice when he's not around…well, most of the time anyways.

  _But today….unfortunately he wasn't that lucky_.

 They jumped him right after fourth period and his classmates' raucous laughter provided just the right cover for teachers to be distracted, giving the bullies time to grab a hold of him and make off with his lunch money. When they found out exactly how scant his allowance amounted to, they decided to stick him in the first convenient place they could find, in this instance the narrow single storage locker where they kept cleaning supplies. He could still hear their loud jeering laughter echoing loudly as they walked away.

  _Thank god my mother likes cooking and making me a bento every single day since kindergarten or I would've died of malnutrition from all the times I didn't have a single yen left to my name._

* * *

 

**_He will never know what it means not to be free._ **

  ** _Dame Tsuna…_** Yeah…he guesses that's all he could ever amount to be and whatever it was would always be ' _dame_ '. It's not the most flattering of nicknames and certainly not the most enjoyable of reputations to be had but there is was and there's certainly nothing he could do about it. Certainly nothing _he_ has done in the past made any difference in the eyes of the kids around him. To them, every incident since just proves over and over again that they gave him the right sobriquet. He will never amount to anything worthwhile…anything good.

  _But better a bad nickname than no nickname right? Better be seen and ridiculed and remembered than bullied and broken and forgotten and unknown, right?_

That's what he tells himself every day when he steels himself against one more morning in school, against one more subject he knows he will inevitably fail, against one more incident that would prove how he never amounted to much. But there are days when even his own sense of resigned acceptance couldn't tide him over. When he wishes just once… _just a moment really_...when he wishes the world could stop picking up on him and all the other bullied kids in school and just let things be. He wished for one day to wake up one morning and just be like everyone else—just a simple, ordinary student—just a faceless, nameless member of the crowd, ignored by those seeking to prey on those too weak to fight back.

 He often wished that there would come a morning when he would wake up to a world where he would have no bad reputation to live down and no impending sense of failure just waiting in the wings to yank the rug of complacency from right beneath his feet.

 He wished with all his being that for once he could wake up to a morning and know that something good will happen to him. And in the very depths of his heart he prays and yearns and pleads that just once… _just once_ , he could have someone to come and help him out of the dark…not because they accidentally found him or because they came looking for the bucket and found him

instead…no, just _once_ , he wish someone would open the door and tell him that they had been looking all over for _him_ …that they opened the door _hoping_ that **he** would be the one waiting on the other side.

  _And yet, even as he desperately made that wish inside his heart—he knows that he is only fooling himself and that dream would never, ever come true. No one—save his own mother—has ever wanted him. Not even the man that sired him—and if that utter waste of a human being couldn’t stand to be next to him despite the presence of his sainted mother—who did he expect would?_

 

**_He will be made safe and free and normal for however long the power this cursed throne holds._ **

 

* * *

 

 

_**Title Translation: ATTO PRIMO = "THE FIRST ACT"** _


	3. LE OMBRE SCURE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: There is a significant part of this tale that features a dialogue between two very opinionated individuals. Please enjoy the exchange and draw your conclusions regarding their identity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: 
> 
> As ever, KHR is not mine. I am merely a poor tale-teller that uses these unique characters for my poor attempt at writing. Apologies for the late update. At times, the most challenging aspect of writing is viewing it from the reader's perspective. It is a frightening realization.
> 
> 2013 Update: The exchange at the beginning of this story—I know I deliberately didn't put any names or descriptions. I did that deliberately. But somewhere along the way, when I was reading and re-reading it, I wonder if I assigned the sequence wrong. Oh well, that's why we edit and re-edit and tweak until we can achieve something that as close to satisfying as possible.
> 
> 2014 Update: Well…tweaking takes a really long time, right?
> 
> 2015: Gods…tweaking…what a word.  
> 2017: What the hell WAS I thinking because clearly I wasn't.

**TIES THAT BIND**

_Chapter 3: LE OMBRE SCURE_

_**What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day?** _  
_\- Christopher Marlowe_

* * *

**_He is a contract killer._ **

_The best out there._ _The very best—_ **_ever._ **

_The greatest contract killer to ever walk the face of the Earth. He is the best at what he does and his reputation is proof positive that he has the skills necessary to put money where his mouth is._

**_The Greatest Hitman in the World._ **

_When he says a job is_ done _—there is no maybe, probably, possibly or will. There is only the inevitability that the contract will be fulfilled. He is bound by duty to see things through. He is bound by his reputation to succeed. He is bound by his obligations, his fearsome reputation and his own exacting personal code to make sure that his assignments turn out the best way possible._

**_He is a law unto himself._ **

_He, however, is not under any rule that could force him to make things any easier for his target or to agree to every assignment given to him. He has the prerogative when it comes to accomplishing his targets. Once the request has been made, everything else lies in his hands, his discretion. The contractor no longer has any obligation save to pay for the job he has been commissioned for. In a business known for fickleness, his guarantee—both in the scope of his job and his track record—has become something of a legend._

_So, when the summons came as he knew it would, there was only one expected outcome even if the commission came when he had been immersed in the training of the Tenth Heir-Apparent of the Cavallone Famiglia. That task proved to be one exercise in patience and creativity since he, himself, had never needed a tutor for all the skills he had acquired over the years. It certainly was amusing developing an even wider repertoire of tortures designed to be as educational as possible while being mentally and psychologically traumatizing as well. It was icing on his cake that he gets to be paid an obscene amount of money to do it._

_The Cavallone immediately gave way once the final orders have been brought down but he insisted on finishing the job. It would not do to leave a job—_ **any job** _—half finished. It speaks of unprofessional behavior and stinks of_ _incompetence_ _and he would be damned before he allowed_ _that_ _word to be associated with his name. He has a reputation to maintain._

_He will answer the summons when he is good and ready and not a moment before. He will accept the assignment, that much is a given. He is, however, hardly ever careless. He will meet with his patron before embarking on this new job._

_This is the one job he couldn't afford to be a miss. It's an assignment that needs the perfect shot. After all, this time around it's more than just his reputation on the line. And he never would risk his reputation for **anything.**_

* * *

 

_[Conversation]_

You called for me.

**_Yes. I am sorry to have to interrupt your current duties but time, I'm afraid, time is of the essence._ **

You are rushing head long into this. I have never known you be reckless before.

**_Is that a no?_ **

Are you giving me the option say that to you?

**_You know our laws and even someone like you is not above it. You cannot refuse. Not this. You know that._ **

No, I don't know that and even if I did I will still tell you the same thing. I will tell what I said before and what I will still say to you now—you're being a bloody fool.

**_A decision has been made and it cannot be undone or unmade. My hands are tied. Despite my plans and machinations it has come to this. There is no other way._ **

You are a fool. What were you thinking? You can't bring someone like that into our world— are you setting him up to fail or worse—get killed? Is that what you want? Is that ultimate goal in this convoluted game of you are determined to play out?

**_He won't be killed._ **

He will be. Can't you see that as well as I do? That is the only fate that is expected of someone like him. If you insist on doing this, he will end up on a slab faster than you can say _Omerta_. You're bringing a paschal lamb to the slaughter and you expect me to give it fangs to fight and learn how to be a predator.

**_He has the ability to grow fangs on his own—you can teach him to be a predator, to have fangs. He can learn—!_ **

But not by choice. Not by _HIS_ choice. Ignore it all you will but that distinction matters. Do you not understand? This should not be a fate for someone like that. In this world its kill or be killed. This is a world that uses you up and then throws you away when your usefulness, your cleverness—your _oh so precious gifts_ —is no longer a viable commodity. You're asking me to take something worthless and unknown and make it to be as valuable as the crown jewel in a world where even lives can become something you barter with.

**_Then make him invaluable. Make it so that he will become priceless. Make it so that he becomes the most precious being in our world._ **

Value only exists for those cunning enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, and wealthy enough to bid, buy or bribe their way to dignity, honor or life. And not even someone like me could designate someone's value or importance. No one man can do all that.

**_Then make him important. Make him priceless. Make indispensable to our world._ **

No one is indispensable in this world—not I—not even you. No one is that important—we’ve cannot allow someone to be that important because then it would make the most of us even more expendable.

**_Then make him to be our world's sole exemption. Teach him how to be the very best—mold him until there is no one like him, no one that can match him, no one that can takes his place. Make it so that he could rival the very legend that created this Famiglia._ **

A man like _that_ is born—not made, you old fool. A leader must be born with the undeniable right to rule otherwise he would need arms and violence and blood to hold on to what he used thievery to possess. A leader is a man blessed by the fickle hands of fate, forged in the heart of danger and bathed in bloodshed by countless others.

**_Do you understand—that’s what he carries inside of him—that wondrous gift of possibility. That’s why you must do this—that’s why you’re the only one who_ could _._**

What you need is man who is survived the kind of things no one innocent should ever have to see. A man who thrives in the face of conflict and trial and battle and yet remains human enough to make others want to follow him to the gates of hell and beyond isn't someone you just find off the grid and hope training could do the rest. To ask me to make someone like that-!

**_He is of HIS blood. Do you understand what THAT means? He is the only one left who bears his blood. The council has made its decision. I despite my reluctance–I had to make my decision. The powers that be have made its decision and there is no denying them. The choice has been taken away from me—don't you understand? That's why I had to bring you in. When the time comes, he will have to come forward —they will never accept anyone who doesn't have HIS blood. He is the most suitable. He is the only the one that IS suitable._ **

Don't give me _that_ cockamamie excuse. Even your precious _First_ had never dared to use the excuse of blood to rule over those who came to him. Even _HIM_ —powerful as he was, blessed and gifted and unique as He was—never played god with the fates of men. He knew better. You can't use such a flimsy excuse for yanking the rug from someone's feet, tossing them into a cage filled with ravenous wolves and expecting them to thank you later for it.

**_He is of_ our _blood. He shares in our blood, our name, our burden of Fate. He must take his place among his Famiglia. He is of our world. He belongs with us. His place is with us._**

The incidental details of his birth doesn't give you the right to take away all that he has, all that he is, all that he could be if he is left as he is. The blood in his veins doesn't give you the excuse to steal away his very being just because it's convenient. He was not meant for your world. He belongs in the light. And in the light this one should remain. You tried to do that didn't you? Isn't that why it took so long for a decision to be made—because of the choices you have already made long ago. What made you change your mind now?

**_Our world has been dark for far too long. Perhaps he will be the light that we have all been seeking._ **

All that you are telling me is that I have to taint yet another soul—worse off—a child that bears the last slivers of his untainted soul just so that he could save all the idiots that created this mess in the first place. I thought you already spared this one—didn't you promise him that this one would not be involved? Wouldn't have to be entangled in our wicked web?

**_I already vowed to atone and continue on atoning even in the afterlife for breaking my promise. I tried my best but even I cannot shield him forever, no matter that I tried and failed. We need him._ **

The bigger question lies in the fact that you seem to fail to consider—does he need you?

**_He will learn to need us. He must_ _._ **

You don't know that, do you? No, you don’t. You can't guarantee something will happen just because you desire it. That’s not how this work, remember? Your predecessors already tried that and that’s what landed you—all of you—into this mess. Now, despite knowing, you’re wilfully doing the same thing?

**_I can only hope. And for the longest time I didn't even have that until he came along. Have you any idea what –what we've had to sacrifice for such a hope? What I promises I broke and vow I cast aside to have even the faintest glimmer of a chance? What I have dared because I knew that he exists?_ **

He is not your hope—he is your last resort.

**_Why can he not be both? Why can he not be our hope even if he is the last resort we have?_ **

Because you can't be a sacrifice and a hero at the same time. There are no more martyrs left in the world.

**_Why not?_ **

Because we called them fools. And because the likes of you and me kills them off as soon as we find them. Innocence, I remember you saying, is best left on the wayside when it gets in the way of accomplishing the impossible.

**_Then this should be a cake-walk for you. For that is exactly what he is, old friend. An innocent impossibility._ **

  

* * *

 

 

He is the best in what he does. People from all over come to seek his expertise. People with power, with wealth, with influence. People come to him because of the things he can do and do very well. But seldom do people come to him for advice. They come to him because they no longer foresee any other option or choice. Because they have reached the end of the road and all the roads back from whatever hell they created for themselves would have to pass through his particular gate of damnation.

 But never in his career has anyone sought him to create hope for a world that chews up innocence and spits out dreamers by the truckload. Never has there been a need for him to preserve an entire way of life—an entire world. Certainly never HIS world.

 For the first time since he could remember, he found himself looking forward to something new. Something finally worthy of his formidable talents and varied skills. Someone to test the limits of what he is able to accomplish and create

_For the first time in his long and varied career, his reputation is being put on the line not to create a masterful death but a means to give birth to hope. For the first time, his name would have to become quite **literal**. For the first time ever since he took the mantle of belonging within his rarified circle he will allow himself to aide someone in being remade, recast—_ **REBORN.**

_**Title Translation:** **LE OMBRE SCURE = "DARK SHADOWS"** _


	4. Le Acque Profonde

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> The usual disclaimer applies. Amano Akira has sole custody to the magic that is KHR. This update is for the kind reviewers who obliged me by guessing the players who were speaking-even if you only did so in your head. Forgive an absent-minded scribe.
> 
> 2013 Update: Tweaking…tweaking…finding more things to tinker with. Do tell if I missed anything.
> 
> 2014 Update: I am, curiously enough, enjoying the process of reworking words and rediscovering new things about images and ideas I've entertained before.
> 
> 2015: Fine tuning....as ever...with every read, there's always something...  
> 2017: Still...

**TIES THAT BIND**

_Chapter 4:_ _LE ACQUE PROFONDE_

 _**Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.** _  
_**Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.** _  
_\- Oscar Wilde_

* * *

**_BA-DUMP..._ **

**He's coming…you…need…to be...ready…**

_That voice again…ah…that voice was calling out to me again…but I don't understand what the voice means…who was coming? And why would he need something from me? This is just a dream…just like all the rest...just another dream, so go away..._

**_BA-DUMP..._ **

**Someone is coming….he's coming...he will come soon…you need to be ready…**

_Ready for what..? Why should I be ready? No one expects anything from me…whoever it is, he's mistaken…He doesn't need me…no one has needed or wanted me for anything… no one except Mom. No one wants me for anything…not anymore. You're wrong you know…this dream is wrong…so leave me alone…._

**_BA-DUMP..._ **

**Something's changing...someone...out there...somewhere...coming close…**

_Stop talking nonsense to me! I don't even know who you are…I don't know what it is that you want from me but whatever it is I think you're wrong. You're not even making any sense so just leave me be! Do you hear me? Leave me alone! I don't want to have to listen to you anymore! Nothing you ever tell me makes any sense!_

**_BA-DUMP..._ **

**Come on...wake up...you need to wake up and pay attention...come on...wake up...!**

_I don't want to wake up yet! I'm tired! I tried paying attention to you the last time and all it did was get me in more trouble! I don't want to hear you in my head anymore! Just leave me alone!_

**Wake up...! I told you he's coming. He's near…he will be here soon…he needs you…** **you need to wake up!**

_No one needs me! No one would want to! Stop yelling inside my head! I don't want to listen to you okay! You're just a weird part of my dreams and I wish for once you'd make sense but you won't and I told you I just want to sleep some more!_

**Stubborn fool…Wake up, _NOW_!**

 

* * *

 

  ** _"I'm up! I'm up!"_**

 

He gawked, wide-eyed and blinking furiously at his mother, startled to see her up close, close enough for him to smell her familiar powdery scent and see the clear curious gleam in her lively brown gaze as she leaned over him. He glanced around his room, his eyesight still blurry with sleep darted erratically at everything and nothing, his racing brain still drowning in adrenaline. The rush inside his head made him want to map out places where he could run, places he could hide, places he could defend. His over-stimulated brain was forcing his body to wind up in expectation even as his mind raced to assess some implied or imagined threat created by that eerie voice inside his head. His hands ached as he clutched the blankets tightly in his fists, his heart slamming in painful throbbing beats, as if he had just finished running a marathon.

 

"Tsu-kun? Tsu-kun! What's the matter? Is something wrong?"

 

His mother's voice finally broke the last vestiges of the dream that held him. Between one breath and the next his body lost all of its coiled tension until it became like it was never there, leaving behind a body that's boneless and limp, trembling from exhaustion and rapidly cooling down from an unknown high. His body, uncoordinated and clumsy at best, floundered and slid off the bed in an inglorious heap like a marionette that had its string cut abruptly. He closed his eyes—whether to capture whatever it was that once again deserted him or to take stock of himself—he couldn't really tell. His breath hasn't had time to even out yet but remembering the look in his mother's eyes called out to him forced him to gather what little remained of his self-possession, prompting him to remember that she was still there waiting and he ought to say something and so he forced numbed lips to move, his voice to work. His words, already clumsy and hesitant at best, stuttered past his trembling lips in his haste to get them out.

 

"M-Mom...w-wha-what are you doing in here?"

 

“Me? Oh Tsu-kun!” his mother gave a gentle thrill of laughter and the tightness in his chest eased a bit more. “Mama just came up to wake you up.”

 

His mother looked him over, reaching out to run her hands through the wild mane that was his hair and for a moment or two, he allowed himself to simply enjoy her touch and gain comfort from her familiar warmth. He felt the hammering of his heart slowly, steadily winding down until it finally calmed to something resembling normal. His aching fingers final unclenched, sluggishly unfurling one finger at a time until the sheet slid free from his grasp. Between a yawn and another deep breath, he was back to normal and he felt the seductive allure of sleep beckon him again. He felt utterly exhausted despite the fact that just woke up. He was just about to succumb to sleep once more when her words as she stepped out of his room finally registered inside his mushed up mind.

 

"Tsu-kun! You're going to be late if you don't get a move on, sleepy head."

 

'What? N-no...w-what time is it-? _Hiiiiiiiieee_! I'm going to be late! _Mooommm_!

 

Nana watched her son dash out of his room, her ears attuned to the exact moment he, like clockwork, tripped for some reason on that particular step.

_Ah…there he goes…oomph!...Tsu-kun, ta ra…!_

He went tumbling in a flurry of tangled limbs and clothing down the stairs as per his daily entrance to the first floor of their humble home. She swears that since her son hit puberty he has given more kisses to the floor of their entryway in the early hours of the morning than he has ever given to her cheeks.

 

Shaking her head in resigned chagrin, she took stock of his bedroom and couldn't help but sigh at the sight of piles of discarded clothes on the floor, paper strewn willy-nilly from one end to the next, the crumpled packaging of several snacks and the other odds and ends that covered nearly every free surface in the place. She couldn’t help but sigh once more in fond exasperation at the sight of the mess he managed to create in his personal space with the short amount of time he has been there since she last tidied up the place.

 

_Oh that boy…what am I ever going to do with you Tsu-kun?_

She bent over to pick up the crumpled blanket that her clumsy little tuna-fish dropped in his mad rush and moved to straighten up the bed clothes he inevitably leaves in disarray whenever he sleeps, familiar enough with her son’s erratic sleep pattern not to pay it any mind. As she tidied up the hastily discarded clothes, the tumbled stack of books, threw away the left over snack wrappers and packaging, her eyes swept across the small space he seemed to occupy more and more and a sliver of wistfulness pierced her heart.

 

_Here and there, she could see pieces left over from his toddler years—toys and picture books— tucked into a random nook or cranny…forgotten pieces and reminders of his more carefree days. Of days when her little Tuna-fish still shone with such blazing promise and hope._

 

Those long-gone years when her little Tsu-kun smiled with the kind of unabashed joy that seemed to be as wide as the sky, filled with the kind of brilliance that could rival the brightness of the sun. Her sweet little tuna fish…if only he would smile that way again…be the way he was…be more like the young man his sweet self once promised to be…

 

_When did he lose his brilliance, my little tuna-fish…when did he stop weaving dreams that made him shine like the very sun?_

Something inside her son never seemed to click just quite right, like some misaligned set of gears that continues to run but never quite as smoothly or as fluidly as it ought or intended to be despite the sweetness of his nature and the depth of his affection. Something inside her beloved baby has never quite come together and she has spent years wondering on and off about it, thought it never really went completely away. She could attest to the sad fact that her darling Tsu-kun spent more time walking into walls during the oddest times and hitting the doorjambs than he does walking through them.

 

And while she is well aware that her only son isn't going to win any price for athleticism, he was not born with such clumsy, dare she admit it, accident-prone nature, of that she was certain. It was as if instead of growing more confident and comfortable with his body as he grew up and adapted himself to his world and his being he was permanently confined in that _24/7_ awkward stage of not knowing, of not-quite being there yet. Tsu-kun seemed to be constantly at war with his own body and despite his best efforts; it was like nothing quite worked as he hoped. It was an accustomed stalemate of sorts, one they have both grown used to in their own ways.

 

_But Tsu-kun used to try despite his fear…he used to look at things and express hope that he would someday be able to…when did he start simply accepting his limitations— resigning himself…?_

Her son had always been a bit soft hearted and timid but lately she has begun to wonder if sometime between her beloved husband's last visit and her son's start in school something had occurred that changed her Tsu-kun from being a cheery, playful, albeit shy, child to a wary, introverted one who seem to always be in constant war with his own body and his environment—a child far too frightened with everything and everyone in his world.

 

_A child at war with the very nature he was born with and sees no hope of winning and so he simply gave in and settled for whatever came his way._

 

And with that thought she had to grimace. Nana is well aware that some fault lies with her. She knows that she never once corrected her son's erroneous ways of thinking. Never once had she told him that he could— _should_ try harder and that she wanted more from him. Never once had she asked him to be more than what he was. Never once saying the truth inside her heart and mind—that she wanted him to want more and that he shouldn't have to acquiesce to defeat and failure so willingly, so easily. That he could demand from the world the same amount of possibility that he brought to it the moment he was born.

 

But she never gave voice to these thoughts. And while they hovered like occasional phantoms in her mind—she never allowed them any solid weight. _No—the truth was, that she couldn’t have given the churning clamors inside her mind any voice._ To do so would open the floodgates of emotions and perception and that would do nothing more than rock the fragile façade of serenity that they maintain in order to live their lives. She feared lending any sort of credence to the voices that would occasionally weave whispers inside her heart and mind because she knew that once she gives in—even if it was only once—there would be no turning back.

 

She might've entertained these thoughts and more but she never said the words, not once, preferring in truth, to having him constantly next to her. She never gave voice to the recriminations that sometimes nag at her—reminding her that her role was to nurture and not simply shield; to help her son grow and not smother him—choosing instead to think of what she was keeping him from—heartache, pain, disappointment—reassuring herself that she was only doing what any good mother would do—protecting her child.

 

_Keeping her child safe from all that may bring him closer to harm—closer to the things she can't protect him from. Ensuring that her sweet Tsunayoshi did not have to confront unpleasant concepts more than he already had since he was old enough to ask her what abandonment means._

She doesn't want him to be out there in the wild, harsh world. No…she doesn’t truly want him out there even if that is where he ought to be—where he might find who he truly is. Selfish and craven as it might seem—she wanted more time with her son—time she knows she will not have for very long.

 

But she only wanted what was best for Tsuna, to insure that he won’t leave. She doesn’t want to think about Tsuna being there–outside where pain could reach him…where she might be too far away to protect him and offer succor…Out there with people who could hurt or harm him…not out there where dangers lurked and lies might corrupt and erode away his light…where he would be beyond her care…her help. She didn’t want him out there where her arms couldn’t reach out and hold him close.

She didn't want her son to suddenly walk out and never come back…she never wanted to live with the uncertainty of having someone she loved walking away from her—leaving her waiting for god knows what again. She couldn’t bear it if her son walked out her door and she will finally be left with nothing.

 

 _Selfish_ … _self-centered fool_ …she knows that she has been nothing but that…but she has never been before… not even with her husband and his time…not for material wealth nor prestige or privilege…No, she has been selfless and self-sacrificing—about many things—but she simply couldn’t be for her son. Anything but her son. She had to draw a line somewhere to keep her sanity and Tsunayoshi’s presence in her life was it.

_But then again Tsunayoshi was all she has...all that makes each day mean something for her. All that was left of the dream she once had and could no longer recall with any clarity now. Tsunayoshi has always been her one lasting joy._

And Tsu-kun's…well, there's always been something so _reassuring_ about having Tsu-kun around…something so comforting about his presence that quieted her fears whenever he was close. There were many times in the past when Tsu-kun was all that kept her sane. Lonely times when she longed for the strength of her husband's arms, and all that she had left to hold on to was the warmth of her little boy. Tsu-kun was always there for her, his eyes always pinned on hers, following her with his gaze, making sure that she was okay…or simply that she was still there. Those eyes reassured her of her place in the world whenever she would look into those deep pools of russet…

 

_Her beloved little tuna-fish had eyes like no one she has ever seen… Tsuna had such beautiful eyes, though it has become more common for him to hide them beneath those spiky locks of his as he grew up. But whenever she had need for them, it was as if he knew and he would look up and gaze at her with those warm russet orbs, offering her support, encouragement and hope. A soothing quality to his soft, guileless gaze that made you want to just be near…near enough to touch and make sure he was there...that he was real. That somehow he wasn't a figment of a dream that might fade when morning comes…_

She always found comfort in the fact that her Tsu-kun's eyes were always so at peace…always clear and always so tranquil. She would sometimes wonder where he got those eyes—deep, clear russet that darkened or lightened depending on the strength of his emotions…eyes blessed with such purity—such depth in spite of his age. Tsu-kun's eyes seemed _ageless_ at times—his clear eyes like those of someone not completely of this world. Like someone who has seen far too much of the world for far too long and learned to care deeply and intently. Sometimes she would simply spend her evenings stealing glances at her oblivious boy and wonder what dwelled behind those impenetrable chocolate orbs and somehow during those times, she finds even more reason to keep him close.

 

_His very nature's so warm…so open and welcoming…and at times, Tsu-kun can be such a comforting surprise in his sense of discretion. One need never lie with her little tuna-fish and one need never fear that he would reveal whatever secret he learns. He knows how precious silence can be when all one wants is for the world to stop turning for just a moment. Knows just how to touch and to keep himself still, silent and grounded so that he could whatever it was she needed him to be. He seems to understand instinctively the need to give succor when one is so close to the breaking point. But more than anything— her little fish had a way of smiling at her at looking into her that made her pull back from the edge and feel like living again._

And yet there would be times when she would be puzzled by the contradiction in Tsu-kun's actions, his manners. Though, to be honest, it doesn't happen often. Usually only when he succumbs to his feelings and experiences something that moves or angers him... _or when he_ _sees his mother cry_...a melancholic voice inside reminds her. Then and only then would the promise of what he could be would come peeking out. She lived for those rare moments, even as her heart breaks for the cause of their arrival.

 

She has resigned herself to the fact that he was clumsy— _god knows her little boy proves that on a daily basis_ —but sometimes, like those rare days when she would give in to her loneliness and he would see her succumb to tears Tsu-kun would suddenly be able to glide silently to her side, offering a crumpled handkerchief or a hastily pulled tissue in his small pale hands. He would touch her jaw gently and look at her with those intense russet eyes and the sun would sometimes glint across their surface-turning them impossibly _golden_ …like a gem set ablaze from within. And then he would tell her tenderly, carefully that he was there…murmur softly in her ear that he will never leave and that she would always have him. He would wipe away her tears with small gentle fingers, smiling determinedly in front her, never once noticing that his own eyes glimmered with tears that never seemed to fall.

 

And then the moment would pass and she when her world has once again regained equilibrium and her heart would once again be stout enough to move forward then she would be left wondering how he got so close to her so fast without faltering when he would usually be unable to even cross from the threshold to the living room without bumping against three different things or tripping across his own feet. Or how his voice was suddenly filled with such depth, such gravitas that it makes her forget that she was being comforted by a child and that she was the actual adult in that equation. And then she would put the thought out of her mind, chalk it up to fanciful melancholy and continue on living as happily as she could with her sometimes-mysterious little tuna fish.

 

_**Title Translation: LE ACQUE PROFONDE = "DEEP WATERS"** _

 

 

 


	5. Che l'uomo da Italia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> Standard disclaimer applies. In no way, shape or form does KHR belong to me. Sole credit is rightfully owned by Amano Akira. Dialogues lifted from manga—augmented to some degree by yours truly—so if you have complaints—please don't. Italian scripts courtesy of Google Translate. Because as much as I would like to claim that I speak Italian, even I can't write that piece of fiction. Many, many thanks to those who read, reviewed, followed and added this humble work to their favorites.  
> 2013: Tweaking. And I finally remembered something. The people conversing should be speaking in Italian. And since Google has so good-naturedly provided online translation I figured 'what the heck, let's try it'. I only beg forgiveness for those out there who actually speak this wonderful language to extend every ounce of understanding for this amateur's blatant misuse, abuse and just butchering of your mother tongue. I can only claim artistic and writing eccentricity as my defense. Have mercy. As for those thinking the heck I bothered doing something so troublesome (heh Shika moment) the reasons fairly simple—it sets the mood and makes it feel a bit more authentic to ME. So there.  
> Italicized = my and Google® attempt at Italian.  
> (…) = My original dialogue
> 
> 2014 Update:  
> —I know that people tend to rant that the Italian is disruptive to the narrative—think of it this way—had I been blessed with the skills I would make the dialogues even more detailed and involved. Alas, I can only tweak with the descriptions to the best of my limited vocabulary since I don't speak Italian and certainly English isn't my mother tongue. 
> 
> 2015: I decided to employ just the English version of most of the dialogues in this story. I admit that as fun as imagining the lines being said by the characters—it impedes in the over-all fluidity of my text. Hope you will like this overhaul. For the sake of convenience this is them speaking in *Italian
> 
> 2017: EDIT

**Chapter 5: CHE L'UOMO DA ITALIA**

**_The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face,_ **  
**_Young blood doth not obey an old decree:_ **  
**_We cannot cross the cause why we were born._ **  
_\- (Love's Labour's Lost, 4.3.203), Biron_

* * *

**_48 hours ago_ **

**_8:00 a.m. Saturday_ **

**_AMALFI COAST_ **

****

The sight may as well have come from a postcard. It was a picturesque seaside tourist town at the end of the well-paved winding, twisting cobble stoned path. Near one of its many small hamlets that delighted many a tourist taking furtive snapshots of, a small café was located, tucked nearly out of sight and far off the beaten tourist path. In one of its many outdoor tables a figure could be seen lounging lazily like a cat sunning itself in the sun. Cool, sharp eyes concealed beneath the thick fall of hair was kept at half-mast, occasionally glaring at the sun when the light becomes too intense, one hand tapping a staccato rhythm of impatience or ennui with long, surprisingly supple fingertips on the cool surface of a weathered wicker chair.

  **"** ** _Occupato?"_** (busy?)

 The voice that spoke out of nowhere was cool and surprisingly sweet-sounding. But _that_ impression lasted but a few precious seconds. All that it took, in fact, was the interval needed for the lounging patron with a pair of impatient cold eyes to swivel past the throng of tourist straight into the unexpected figure standing where once there was no one.

  ** _"T-tu—!"_** (Y-you)

 A raised finger and tightening of thin lips effectively stopped the flood of words that threatened to erupt from the clearly flustered café patron. Straightening, the patron revealed himself to bear the face and figure of a young male with eyes alert and cheeks now mottled with the flush of embarrassment for being caught unaware. He stole a glance at this latest disruption and wondered if he should consider relocating at the soonest possible time.

  ** _“Rule No. 1, don't make asinine assumptions. Rule 0—you don't ask me stupid questions that will make me waste my time and I don't waste you. Understood?”_**

 A gulp and a short nod. All the response that was allowed in situations such as this. To do more would be more than foolhardy. But the new arrival didn't settle for nonverbal cues when he conducted his dealings. He wanted the words or he wouldn't ask for them.

  **"** ** _Mi chiedo di se aveste compreso."_** _(_ I asked if you understood _)_

**"** ** _Comprendo_** **."** (I understand)

  ** _“Make arrangements. I have a special assignment for you.”_**

All trace of chagrin or nerves vanished immediately from the young man as if they were never there. This, at least, was familiar territory for him. The exchange is one that's known and well-practiced.  He gestured towards his chest and upon receiving a nod, reached into his denim jacket to bring out a small black book and pen. A quick flip of his wrist had the book opened to a blank page, pen poised at the ready. He pinned the man before him with a cool impassive look, his questions at the ready.

  ** _"Quando?"_** (When)

 A pause. The first since the newcomer arrived. The young man didn't suspect anything from it. A contract such as the ones he normally participated in was a delicate matter and he was prepared to wait until the contractor was certain. He knows well enough that he wouldn't have to wait long. Not with this man. Certainly not one with the kind of reputation this man has long held and enjoyed. Considerations, tactics and strategy flashed in the span of time it takes for a normal person to blink. Decisions finally made, a barrage of instructions flowed out.

**** **_“I'd call for you when I have the need for it. Terminate any and all contract you have pending and don't contract any further jobs for the time being. Prepare the necessary papers for an extended stay. At the moment, the job will have an indefinite timeline so you must be free when the second I need you mobilized._ **

  ** _"Mascherare?"_** _(Cover)_

**_“No need. Where you're going, I doubt anyone would know or care.”_ **

**_"Quanto?"_** (How much)

 Another pause. This time there was a lethal edge to the suddenly charged silence. If he thought he had overstepped his bound and crossed into dangerous territory the young man didn't show any outward reaction. He firmly locked his gaze with the fearsome figure in front of him and waited. This was the most delicate part of his process. And one in which he paid the closest attention to.

  ** _"Pensi che ti avrei barare?"_** _(You think I'd stiff you)_

The question held the thinnest sliver of amusement in it. The young man weighed his options, whether to apologize or to stick to his principles. In the end, he went with his gut instinct and the retort when it came, was pithy and to the point. There was a wealth of knowledge in the brief exchange. If he ended up losing the contract, so be it. He couldn’t compromise on this or he’ll get stepped on over. And that’s one particular level of hell he has no intention of revisiting— _ever._

  ** _“Rule One of Surviving the streets-Look out for yourself and your interest before anything else.”_**

 A nod this time and the barest gleam of approval in those intense fathomless eyes that the young man barely caught. A faint flush of rose washed over sculpted cheekbones and the contractor gave a brief chuckle.

  ** _“Shrewd. You have that at least. I like it. Don't worry, kid, you will be paid well over the normal fees, I guarantee it. It’s not like were hurting for funds.”_**

The young man allowed himself a derisive snort before a thought crossed his mind causing his hand to pause, the quick scrapings of the pen halted to a sudden stop. Eyes, sharp, clear and unamused stared back at fathomless depths and scowled as his memory raced back to the exchanges they’ve had so far, paying particular focus to certain words. The words that spilled out of his lips were succinct and sardonically terse.

  ** _"Un'assegnazione che merdoso  eh?"_** (That _shitty_ an assignment, huh)

 A smirk was all that was given, as if the question posed was primarily a means to tease. A rhetorical question that needs no further confirmation. The response was expected. No one paid more than the expected fees unless the contractor knows the assignment would be less than ideal. It was the unspoken specifications of their particular game. The more complicated and lethal the contract was, the more tempting the fees would be. After all, no one would risk much—let alone their lives—for mere pittance. That kind of stupidity wouldn't even buy you a cup of cappuccino or a night's rest in the dingiest hovel in the slums. The response, when it came, was suitably scathing.

**_“Don't be a condescending twit. Consider this your audition, so do your damned best to pass. If you manage to succeed in this little—test—if you will, then I guarantee you, you'll never have cause or room for regret.”_ **

  ** _"Chiarire che a me."_** (Clarify that for me)

 “To say the least, when this assignment is over, your entire world will be turned upside down. I seriously doubt you’d even recognize it. That and _Omerta_ will be the only thing that could possibly hold you back.”

 A low whistle sliced through the tense air, expelled through pursed lips and now, a cocked brow rose questioningly.

  ** _"Questo è un incentivo molto allettante che stai offrendo lì."_**

(That's quite the tempting incentive you're offering there)

  **"** ** _Lo pensavo anch'io."_** (I thought so too)

 A sigh. Nimble fingers tapped the notebook absently against a raised knee; the pale, elegant digits seemed incongruous against the battered notebook and cheap fabric. Unusual eyes the color of sun-struck aquamarines stared contemplatively in the distance—blind to the never-ending ebb of bodies parading in front of them. Wariness warred with cautious hope. Cynicism and skepticism battled with interest for dominance at the forefront of his mind.

  ** _“So which desperate famiglia is playing Good Samaritan with me? I haven’t heard of any currently suffering from something worth paying a street rat that much.”_**

 A snort of condescension, and pursed lips greeted the young man's words, the question itself was clearly viewed as a minor affront, but the answer came anyway.

  ** _"C'è solo un che rappresento."_** (There's only one I represent)

  ** _"Quale famiglia alleate?"_** (Which allied family?)

 The sudden silence that descended between the two was telling and thick with unspoken tension. The hawk-like gaze that until that moment only showed faint sardonic amusement sharpened until the darkness of its usual hue held a preternatural gleam. The lethal edge only hinted mere moments ago is now, like a stiletto displayed in all its deadly its glory—fully unsheathed.

  _“_ I don't think you heard me.”

_"Merde."_

The chuckle that followed the expletive sent more than a shiver of trepidation down the young contractor's spine. If his guess was right, he'd just been recruited by the most powerful _Famiglia_ that currently exists and that could only spell one thing—trouble—deep, the killed or be killed kind of trouble.

  _"Aspetta il mio evocare. Quando chiamo per te, non voglio avere a che fare più di una volta."_

(Wait for my summons. When I call for you, I don't want to have to do it more than once)

 The young man didn't actually see his contractor walk away. Frankly he didn't even see the man move away from where he perched the minute he disappeared. He had only glanced away for a second as a group of passing tourist blocked the sun's rays and when he looked back he was alone.

The broker was gone. Came and went like a passing cloud that cast it shadow so profoundly before leaving just as suddenly.

 Had anyone tried to see if they could catch a final glimpse of the elusive figure would see nothing but all that was left when the next group of tourist that noisily passing along and the figure of a young man that has once again slouched like a indolent cat sunning itself across a weathered wicker chair, an idle hand once again tapping a thoughtful staccato rhythm against an empty china cup.

  

* * *

 

 

**_31 hours ago, Dusk_ **

**_Sunday_ **

**_SICILY_ **

The dockside bar was like any other found in any port city in the world. The landscape consisted of the usual sights and serenaded by the predictable cacophony of sounds— ships, surfs and seagulls. The buildings were small and low, none of them new or in any way ostentatious, faded signage and weathered brass fixtures with their soft lighting their only distinguishing marks.

 True, here and there, dotted like so much ill-placed shrub, are scruffy looking men hanging out of the bars, bikes and trucks between them. In a far corner, a pair of lovers whispered and flirted with the casual, impersonal abandon of the young. A street over, a mother and son clearly chatted about their dinner plans as they lugged home a laden paper sack of groceries. And yet, if one would look broadly at the scene with discerning eyes, they would be able to see that there was a dissonant air to what should've been a banal scene, like a staged scene that any minute now could be disrupted and stripped away.

 For while there are scruffy looking men in biker gear and truck-stop couture dressed in their usual plaids and sweat-stained undershirts, there were also quiet men clad in conspicuous black suits that moved with stealthy grace as they smoked and leaned against a shadowed corner. The flirtatious couple walked hand in hand and yet for all their gaiety never seemed to glance any further than where their own shadows were cast, their eyes pinned on each other—seemingly blind to everyone and everything else around them, reacting not at all to the oddly parked black limousine that sat incongruously at the curb. The mother and son curiously avoided the wide open paved streets and continued to traverse the long, curved more troublesome cobblestoned paths of the winding nearby alleyways.

 Amidst this on-going tableau of contradictions a cloud passed over the full moon and obscured the faint light and when it emerged once more a shadow stood silhouetted against the cold pebbled streets as if born from that brief flicker of darkness. The shadow moved resolutely towards one of the quieter box-like structures and pushed the heavy doors open.

 A smoky haze filled the room, redolent of expensive cigar and subtle masculine scents. Heavy wooden tables gleamed under the soft light of recessed lamps and wall scones. Cut crystal glass filled with expensive spirits shared space with imported, branded beers that were held in nimble fingered grasp, thin lips stretched into smirks and grimaces, some even had smoldering sticks of expensive cigars bobbing from lips flapping in soft murmured conversation. Bodies—wiry, gangly, and rotund—clad in everything from expensive handmade suits to designer couture, arrayed around here and there, each seemingly relaxed, yet each making sure that they had a clear sight of the available exits.

 The sound of the heavy oak doors swinging open brought heads swiveling towards the figure that stood out amidst the fading sun's light. A ripple of awareness swept across the patrons sitting and a new tension gripped them. A few brave ones offered a silent toast to salute the newcomer as two of the older, more relaxed patron dared to venture initiating a conversation.

  _"Buona sera, straniero."_ (Good evening Stranger)

_"Che non abbiamo visto ti per lungo tempo." (_ We haven't seen you for quite some time)

_"Si troppe cose da fare."_ (Too much to do)

_"Chiamato dallo vecchio uomo nuovamente? "_ (Called out by the old man again?)

_"Quelle popolare l'hanno duro."_ (The popular ones have it tough.)

_"Allora, dove ti sono spenti a questo tempo? Venezia? Roma? "_

(So where are you off to this time? Venice? Rome?)

_"Giappone."_ (Japan)

_"Cosa? Ma questo significa che ..."_ (What? But that means…)

_"Il vecchio si deve aver finalmente preso la sua decisione?"_

(The old man must have finally made up his mind?)

_"Sembra che sta andando essere un viaggio lungo."_ (It looks like it is going to be a long journey)

 There was no need for the figure to say anything further. His mind, after all, was already cataloging and planning all the things he needed to accomplish the job waiting for him a thousand miles away. He only made a stop to give final instructions regarding his standard order from the bar. The old barkeep gave him a single slip of paper and then there was the faint swish of the doors slipping closed once more. No one saw the stranger leave. Not that it mattered—speculation was well and truly alive the moment they were certain he was no longer around to hear them speak.

 

**Title Translation: _CHE L'UOMO DA ITALIA_ = "THAT MAN FROM ITALY**

 

 


	6. A Prima Vista

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: 
> 
> We know the drill. KHR isn't mine so don't remind me anymore okay. Again as I've said in the previous chapters I am tweaking the tale a bit so this chapter's not exactly new. The one that follows, however, most certainly is.  
> 11-09-2013 Update: Tweaking the chapters as I go along. Looking at the ways I could maybe smoothen out the dialogues and the inconsistencies so that I could figure out what to do with the next chapters.  
> 2014 Update: I am slowly reacquainting myself with what I wrote before delving into a new chapter. It's a process that I often do before writing a continuance. Sorry for being so troublesome.  
> 2015: As ever…tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.

**Chapter 6:** **A PRIMA VISTA**

  
**_Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being._**  
_~Michel de Montaigne_

* * *

  
**6:00 a.m.**  
**Monday**  
**Namimori, Japan**

  
_The house was nondescript._ There really was no other way to say or describe it. It was a simple house in a simple, cloyingly idyllic suburb, in the middle of an even smaller town. It was the picture-perfect example of Nowheresville. He could already feel his skin beginning to break out in hives. It's enough to make a hit man's skin crawl off in disgust.

 _Mediocrity. Gods how fucking trite_.  _My hives are breaking out into hives and I  haven’t even been here for five minutes._

It was a town far from the hustle, bustle and sophistication of his familiar world. Or any place that he's ever been for that matter. The entire town looked like it was plucked of some fucked up children's picture book. And the house just made it just worse. It was cloyingly and stiflingly _normal._ There was nothing special about the house, nothing especially noteworthy save for its neatness and that feeling of welcome that it seemed to exude in some intangible way. The house seemed like a woman in slumber, poised and expectant, waiting just at the threshold of awakening to open up to whoever was lucky enough to find succor and sanctuary there.

 

Surely there was nothing in the house—outside or inside it to indicate to the rest of the world that the house belongs to one of the most influential and powerful mover and shaker in the underworld. A humdrum picture of mediocrity seemed bred to the house's very bones. The cream-colored walls and red tiled roof were in excellent condition. The door and windows was seemingly secure though the low wall and equally flimsy gate wouldn't do anything against a determined intruder and certainly wouldn't amount to much more than an annoying delay for someone with nefarious intent and a fair amount of skill and common sense. Never mind that a skilled assassin would think of the house as someone's idea of a demented joke. The fact that there was an actual balcony that led directly to what he could surmise as a bedroom didn't improve the pathetic excuse for security the house provided.

 He made a mental note to remedy the problem as soon as he gains entry into the household. It wouldn't do for someone with his reputation to settle in a residence that fairly screams ' _burglarize me'_ written so blatantly on it.

 Mental note taken, his eyes assessed the house once more. It was as unassuming as an abode as any of the neighboring houses within its proximity. Surely there ought to be something there. _Something more._ Something to indicate that this simply constructed box held within its insubstantial walls and flimsy beams the soul that would one day become the leader of one of the oldest and certainly the most powerful Mafia Famiglia in the world. Surely even fate wouldn't play such a prank on him by delivering him to the home of some prosaically _normal, benign_ child.

 With an irritated sigh, he glanced at the thin sheet of parchment he held in his hand. The flimsy parchment contained the advert he penned on the plane en route. He wonders now if the wording he chose was perhaps too vague for the absentminded-looking woman he spied moving with frenetic energy inside the house. He wonders too if the advertisement's wording would be simply too complicated for her to figure out. Any woman who could live in blissful ignorance of her mate's particular choice of occupation could either be absolutely astute or regrettably ditzy.

 He stole another glance at the figure that tottered busily inside and slid the note inside the mail box. Something— _some instinct_ —told him that he would find out soon exactly what kind of woman could hold the reins to the heart of the fierce Young Lion of the Vongola. Anyone who could tame such a wild spirit and hold him in thrall would be a formidable woman indeed, especially if she was so willing to exile herself halfway around the world for his sake. Devotion like that couldn’t have been easy to find or secure.

 In the meantime, he would be patient. He timed his arrival perfectly. With any luck, he would have enough time to do a quick surveillance of his new surroundings, breach the threshold by the time dinner is to be served and have his first meeting with his 'unfortunate' student after his day from school. It would give him plenty of time to prepare the boy for what's in store for him in the coming days ahead. It would also give him plenty of time to put some of his not-so immediate plans into action. No sense in wasting half the day when there's a lot of things that must be attended to. A good tutor can never have too much preparation. And there's an entire town that he needs to map out and prepare for the coming training days. The sooner he could attend to that matter, the smoother and easier the training and transition would be for all concerned.

 Really, his patron should've assigned him an entire squad to boss around so that he didn't have to be reduced to actual manual labor to set up his training. Come to think of it, the Old Man did give him blanket permission regarding the boy’s training. He could ‘appropriate’ manpower and funds to his cunning hearts content and the demanding old coot couldn’t reprimand him. Smirking at the thought—he made a note about contacting his banker to open a few new offshore counts to pay for his newest ‘project’.

_Oh well…at least he was given full-on carte blanche on his methodology and that's always an entertaining scenario. He could always request additional manpower on top of what he is already professing to employ if he should ever need it and should that avenue be denied him—well, the Old Man never specified that he had to legally gain assistance. Blackmail and outright threats would work just as well with him. Hanging insufferable pricks who decides to be troublesome wasn’t exactly a hardship._

* * *

 

**_10:00 a.m._ **

**_Monday_ **

**_Namimori Middle School_ **

 

There was something really odd happening to him. All day he felt like he was waiting for something or someone to arrive. It was an irrational feeling since he knows damn well he wasn't expecting any one at all. Though he lived with only one parent—the other being an absentee figure that he never wasted time waiting for—hardly anyone ever came to visit them. Certainly there had never been any instance when the visitor came specifically for him. Sales people came to the house from time to time, a statistician, and once, there was that scruffy looking old man that came looking for his father and left immediately after seeing his face. But on the whole, it was as if, like himself, his house was fairly invisible to would-be visitors and the like.

 So there was no logical reason for him to feel this urgency and unease. But somehow he couldn't shake off the feeling that something is about to change. Just what it was…he couldn't tell. Vexed, he wished the annoying voice inside of him would give its usual clarion call of warning but for once the voice he had been living with since he was very little was oddly silent. A few days ago, for the first time ever, the voice inside his head spoke so strongly and now, oddly, it was glaringly silent. As if it had nothing more to say. He dismissed the thought immediately, knowing full well that ever since he can remember that voice had always been there. **_Always._**

  _Was he in any danger? Was that it? No_ … _it couldn't be danger. Not completely but there is something unsettling that's coming…soon…closer. There was the same frisson telling him that there would be danger but it wasn’t the usual kind of danger that he faced, which probably meant no one was planning to ambush him for his usual round of beatings._

The voice that spoke to him in his dreams always warned him when true danger comes. He has learned to listen to it after the last time he ignored the warning and ended with a fractured wrist and bruises he could no longer find excuses for courtesy of his school's resident bullies. After that, any time the voice gave him a warning with the same tell-tale sense of urgency, he took preventive actions. It didn't solve all his problems and certainly didn't give him any form of reprieve from the constant harassment and pain but it certainly curtailed any repeat of the more dangerous, troublesome kind of beatings that could result in more permanent damage.

  _So, no…he wasn't in some danger. At least, not the usual type of danger_. But there was certainly something there… _something warning him_ …All that he could tell for sure was somehow the voice inside of him was humming with awareness and anticipation. _But that_ _was absurd!_ He told himself over and over again to ignore the feelings and the voice inside his head. It was wrong. _What did he have to be excited over? Nothing exciting ever happened to him unless one counts on being chased by a rabid Chihuahua with a mean streak._ But for the life of him he couldn't still figure it out why his body was tightening in anticipation _. Or was it trepidation_? He had to figure it out…he had to-!

_“Tsuna pass!”_

* * *

 

**THWACK!**

 

"Oof!"

 The impact of the ball slamming into him felt like someone had hit him with a sledgehammer.

It smacked him straight into the smooth cold wooden gym floor with unforgiving thoroughness and force making his ears ring and his eyes to close in reflex. Apparently he was once again so lost and distracted with his internal musings that he forgot where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. The pain reminded him quite literally to remember that he should keep his introspection during the few times and places he couldn't get hurt and that school definitely didn’t fall into either of those categories.

 The gym where he was clearly wasn't one of those places. Chagrined, he tried to get to his

feet with as much dignity as he could spare but by then, it was much too late and his body

was once more refusing to cooperate.

" _Ahh! Not again!"_

_"Come on Dame Tsuna!"_

The admonishments and cries of disappointment were nothing new. He had certainly heard worse things since he entered elementary school and if his bad luck would hold out they would probably continue to do so until he graduated from high school. Though the pain of the ball's impact has been dulled to a throbbing, aching heat, he wasn't in such a hurry to get back on his feet. The cold floor eased some of the pain, and he could delay having to be confronted by those eyes again.

**_Belittling eyes. Condescending eyes. Disappointed eyes._ **

He can't recall the last time he was spared by those unforgiving eyes. Certainly, he has learned to cope. _He had to_. It was either that or breakdown completely and he couldn't afford to do that. Not with his mother already burdened as she was with her own pain on top of taking care of him. Not to mention the undeniable fact that most of the time, he really couldn't help being no good academically or otherwise, he has enough strikes against him to last a lifetime—he really had no leeway left for being emotional or demanding. But somehow, despite all of his pep talks, the sting lingers and continued to linger long after the ones that cast them on him had left. It echoed inside his head…the unceasing cacophony of jeers and taunts and derisive jokes all at his expense. It was a broken record that plays inside his mind all the time, silenced for a few short moments but stays playing all the same whenever another instance of 'no good Tsuna' came out to play— _reminding him constantly_ _of the things he could never run away from._

**_"Ah! You're the reason why we lost you know!"_ **

_Yes, he knows. Oh, how well he knows that fact._ Every team he has ever joined, in every event, in all his grade level, for any and all reasons, lost when he was with them. It was no wonder he always get picked last. He honestly couldn't blame them. He would've denied them the pleasure of taking a pity on him if only the teacher hadn't insisted on everyone participating. Sometimes he wonders who was crueler—his classmates for their prejudice and derision or the teachers for their obliviousness regarding his plight. Sometimes he wishes he could simply produce a medical certificate that would ban him from participating so that he could spare himself the heartache of being taunted, heckled and injured as well as spare his classmate the necessity of doing all of that to him in the first place.

 

The sound of retreating footsteps signaled a release of sorts. With his back turned from the rest of the class, he gingerly raised himself off the floor, absentmindedly dusted his P.E. uniform and tried to figure out how best to leave as unobtrusively as possible. It wasn't that hard and he had grown adept at fading quite literally into the woodwork. Barely, if anyone at all, ever acknowledges his presence on a daily basis. He could only hope that this time he would be lucky enough to be slide past all of his classmates before any of them noticed him. It wasn't that hard nor would it be the first time. It has happened before. He looked up and felt his heart sink. _They didn't leave after all._ They actually came closer to where he was standing, glaringly alone and with nowhere to hide to confront him directly. The words tumbled past his lips without a moment's thought.

 "I'm sorry!"

 Eyes cast down; head bowed diffidently, the words of apology poured out of him automatically now. He practically apologizes for anything and everything now if it would save him a few precious minutes of respite before the hail of fists and recriminations start flying. It certainly allowed for a few rare instances when the would-be attackers would be so disgusted with his subservience that they lost their eagerness for a beating and simply sneered at him in derision before walking away. Those were the days he considered more a win than a humiliating loss.

 A broom was suddenly thrust in front of him and he winced before he reached out and took it in his hands reflexively.

 "We want to play during our precious after school time."

"So, you can do the cleaning for us, right?"

 There was no doubt that their statements were anything but an order. The broom held closely against his chest felt cold and heavy and he tried to speak—to ask—to say anything but the others had already turned away. He bit his lip to stem the flow of words that wanted to escape knowing full well it wouldn't make one iota of difference since there would be no one else there other than himself who would hear them anyway.

 "Were counting on you!"

  ** _No…you're not…_**

"You can do it."

**_No, I can't…not by myself…it's impossible!_**

"And if you can't well, they'll understand won't they, Dame-Tsuna!"

  ** _That nickname again…I've lived up to my nickname again, huh…_**

He clutched the broom closer to his chest and bowed his head in defeat. His fingers ached as he gripped the broom's handle tightly in his fist, his lips trembled as he bit them to stave off the embarrassed whimpers he wouldn't give voice to and his closed lids already feeling heated, the tell-tale burning beneath them choking him with shame even as he tried desperately to stem the flow of frustrated tears that he knew was cascading down his pale cheeks as taunts and recriminations echoed all around him in unceasing wave of words and voices.

 

_"…Tests?"_

"Flunked them all since he enrolled!"

_"…Sports?"_

"The team that Dame-Tsuna is on always loses!"

 

Their derisive laughter grated in his ears and the pain that he felt when the ball slammed into his face now felt trivial to the ache of shame and humiliation washing over him. They didn't even bother to conceal the fact that they were talking about him as they strode out of the gym, their words reverberating mercilessly in the sudden stillness and silence of the huge room drowning out the soft, hesitant words that managed to slip past thin, trembling lips.

 

**"P-please….h-help m-me…p-please…"**

****

* * *

 

 **Title Translation: _A PRIMA VISTA_ = "AT FIRST GLANCE"**  

 


	7. Nei Tuoi Occhi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> Hey! I finally made a new one! KHR is still not mine, obviously and all that yaddah…doodah…blah blah. Hope you're still reading out there.  
> 11-09-2013 Update: Never realized re-reading this would reveal so much WORK. How in the heck did I conceptualize this in the first place?  
> 2014 Update: Did I mention the work involved with re-reading? Why did I really do this again and yes, I am still wondering how the hell I conceptualized this—was I possessed that day or what? Geez Louis…  
> 2015: Whenever I read this—I really wonder where I got the idea for the dialogues…sometimes I think it’s true—some stories do write themselves.

**Chapter 7: NEI TUOI OCCHI**

  
_**What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.**_  
_~Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street, 1940_

* * *

As far as first impressions go, the candidate Timoteo has chosen leaves much to be desired. If he was more inclined to be blunt, he would say that his old friend must've either lost a bet when he made his decision or he was clearly under the influence of some kind of powerful enemy that blackmailed him into choosing such an heir-candidate. That or he was either flying high on some kind of designer drug created solely to induce sheer unutterable stupidity or he was rip-roaring drunk. If he was being absolutely tactless, he would say to anyone who asked that the candidate the Ninth has chosen was exactly the kind of person he would use for target practice just because he could find them anywhere, any time of the day. A dime-a-dozen, disgustingly _Average Joe_. 

_A mediocre, run-of-the mill nobody he wouldn't even hire for the lowliest position as garden lackey in any of the mansions of the Famiglia. Heck, the dumb nut wouldn’t even make it past the front gate if he were the only applicant for the job of being a human doorstop._

Worse, the candidate is so glaringly uncoordinated he's already making a mental note to have Shamal check the boy for a full-on medical examination just to ensure that he wasn't suffering from anything neurological, muscular, degenerative or endomorphic disease that interferes with coordination. He's praying that whatever the problem was, it could be remedied with old-fashioned medication because failing that, he would have to make do with old-fashioned bone-breaking and Spartan training.

With that, he also added a note on having someone check the boy's eyes and ears—the last thing he wants is a boy with vertigo slowing his training down since his sense of balance was out of whack up to the wazoo. Corrective laser eye surgery too would be undertaken if that was the case since he refuse to allow a glasses-wearing mob become a Boss. No matter how intelligent a nerd was—it did very little for the intimidation quotient. A nerd was a nerd and a nerd means a target painted on the poor schmuck who wore the damned glasses.

The boy was also disgustingly _apathetic_ —clearly he had no sense of competition, ambition or even just motivation other than merely existing. Not even surviving—no, that would imply some sense of subjugating even the smallest aspect of his life—but no, the boy was more concerned with remaining under the radar. _He was simply existing._

He has displayed no interest or particular skill in sports, suffering a head injury in gym class today because he stood in the middle of a volleyball game spacing out like an idiot. His grades were best left unmentioned since there was absolutely nothing he could mention that wouldn't be cringe-inducing or disparaging. He didn't confront people even when he had every right to—and while diplomacy was a skill that's prized in any leader—being a wimp and a doormat certainly wasn't. _No one was going to follow a man who has the conviction of a waterlogged, limp noodle._

And the boy was disappointingly unattractive ( _okay that one might not mean much to others but there isn't a single effective leader, anywhere in the world, at any given time, in any era that is ever truly butt ugly for a reason. You think Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great were conquerors just because they took over some land with their wits? Why the fuck do you think they coined the term charisma? It’s the X-factor that all effective leaders had—political or corporate._ ).

Okay, that's not completely true—he wasn't butt-ugly, just maybe a bit unsightly since he never seems to stand up straight preferring to slouch every single time. He has the posture he seemed to have copied straight from the Hunchback of Notre Dame minus the cathedral hideaway. He also drags his feet whenever he shuffles around and there was that flinch-reflex that needs to be eradicated once and for all. The candidate resembled more a beaten, down on its luck mutt than a future Famiglia head. His hair was a brown, dish-water brown that’s messy and spiked up all over the place—not the attractive, windswept, just-got-out-of-bed effortless coiffure—not this is more I’ve-tried-every-product-on-the-country-and this is the best it will ever get kind of look.  His skin was pallid, pockmarked in places and had the thin scars scoring his arms whenever his sweater would ride up and he has this habit of biting his lips and hiding his eyes whenever people got a hand's-breadth closer than necessary to him.

According to the hasty reports the Vongola lackeys have been able to cobble together when he demanded them, the boy is way below average in nearly everything that would make him even worthy of any notice— _intelligence, status, athleticism, charisma_ —there was simply nothing to work with. His old friend and current employer has given him a challenge worthy of the ages—he gave him a raw hide still attached to the sow apparently—and demanded that he turn it into pure, priceless silk. Not just base metal into gold like most alchemists, no, not even straw into gold never mind that he would've shot Rumplestiltskin had he dared to order him around—no, his friend and employer gave him something apparently no one wanted and expected him to turn it into the pearl of prize worthy of being hailed more precious than all the crown jewels in the known world.

**_Honestly, why couldn't the man just ask him to shoot himself in the head and get it over with? That would've far easier, less annoying and just plain better than the alternative. This wasn’t a project—this was a rehabilitation program._ **

But he was a professional and so he would see things through. Though to be brutally fair, Nono knows well enough that he liked challenges. The more improbable, the more impossible, the better. He liked challenging himself, his skills, his talent and resources, pitting them against the most unfavorable of odds and then coming out the winner. He liked annihilating obstacles to worthy causes and overcoming them. Nono knows this fact more than anyone else.

 Worse of all, Nono knows he couldn't resist a challenge that puts into question his sterling reputation. And though all the intelligence report supplied even by his varied sources tells him that the candidate was less than ideal, there was one thing that held sway over his decision. One reason he knows trumped all the written words he had spent the past few days reviewing. One reason that is contingent upon all others.

* * *

**_**Flashback**_ **

**Vongola Mansion**  
**Italy**

 

_The valley was bathed in gold…the sun's setting rays gilding everything it touched, setting the wide open skies ablaze with the kind of light and color unrivaled by even the cleverest of man's attempt at art. Resting at the heart of this verdant valley, secluded behind a thick growth of trees and voluminous rows of grapes and olive groves, a mansion lies hidden from prying eyes and inside its high walls a muted conversation takes place in one of its many rooms, in a balcony that offered the only sliver of sea visible for miles all around._

_Two figures, both male sat facing each other from across a small wrought iron patio table._

_Identically clad in black, identical cups of coffee staring idly by as mute witnesses as their eyes looked out into the majestic vista displayed in front of them, a voiceless tapestry on which their silent exchange takes precedence. A moment pass, or maybe two and one of the black suited men finally broke their fragile tête-à-tête._

_His voice was hushed, gravely with the years and endowed with the kind of quality found only in those blessed with undeniable wisdom and charisma._

_"You are leaving today?"_

_The hesitation in his tone was not concealed or buried beneath false courtesy. There was earnestness in his tone that reveals his concern. The response, when it came, came with a voice soft and eerily sweet._

_"As soon as they're done refueling the plane. Then I will let them take me as far as the closest airport. I will make my own way towards Namimori afterwards. It will not do to alert others to my presence just yet. And I wouldn't like to draw any unnecessary attention for as long as possible."_

_The older of the two simply nodded but his eyes, like his voice when he spoke again, was laced with undeniable sadness. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with clear melancholy and weariness._

_"My friend—take good care of him, please. I know that you don't have much faith left in my judgment after that regrettable incident eight years ago—"_

_His words were cut off by the wave of another's hand. The voice, still sweet, was firm. "I told you to take care regarding your ward. But I erred towards caution regarding your feelings and clear affection towards him. I didn't say enough though and_ _that_ _is my fault."_

_"I know. If it could've been avoided, you know I would've done anything. But I still believe that…it doesn't matter now. What matters is that you go to that child as soon as you can."_

_Silence once more reigned. This time it was the sweet-voiced one that broke their impasse._

_"Have you truly made up your mind about this Timoteo? About your chosen candidate? There’s still time to reconsider—"_

_Like the words that broke the silence before, they were softly spoken. The weight of the words was clearly felt and the older companion took a deep breath before speaking. His eyes, lambent and gentle shone with determination and melancholy. His words, when they came, were husky with emotion, filled with longing and hope._

_"This family—_ **_my family_ ** _—is all that I have ever loved…From the very cradle I was told I will one day be in charge of it and I grew up knowing that it was my duty, my God-given birthright. I know of no other life and though I have many regrets, I wish for no other. But my family—_ **_this family is dying_ ** _, my friend."_

_Timoteo pierced the famed hitman with a poignant look from his golden eyes—pale gold in the dying illumination of the sun…lit as if from within by a flickering candles light nut unlike their usual calm look or impenetrable gaze—the torment this time was obvious for anyone to see._

_"My family is dying all around me, Reborn and I am forced to watch it. Forced to do little but watch it slowly slide into decay and depravity with each fading moment. It is being torn apart from within by the very hands that should've nurtured it and there's precious little I could do to prevent it. I no longer have the strength of heart nor the will to launch an effective strike." Timoteo raised a weathered, veined hand towards his heart and shook his head in wry amusement._

_"My mind—my heart—my spirit—all of it has been used up. I am not who I used to be ten, twenty years ago and I have no wish to be. But needs must that I maintain the façade, for the good of everyone else, I cannot do anything else. I am barely holding on but even when I know I should step down there is nothing I can do but stoically remain. All that I can do now is hold things at bay." He gestured towards the stunning vista that lay before him and turned towards his silent, contemplative partner. "Our entire world is unraveling…it is being assaulted from all sides…weakening each and every one of us. The decline has been going on for years and years and years, aided by centuries of war and bloodshed and betrayals. I need to put a stop to it, old friend. If there is nothing else that I could do in this world there is still this. I must find a way to stop our descent into oblivion before all is lost."_

_Reborn flicked open his seldom-used cigarette case and pulled out a thin, black stick that he lighted without much ado. Inhaling deeply before expelling a curiously aromatic plume of smoke, he murmured quietly, "You are pinning so much of your hopes, your wishes and prayers on the whims of fate, Timoteo. Why are you hinging everything on this child, hoping that he could accomplish what nine generations of men couldn't?"_

_"This child is very special, Reborn…_ **_truly special_ ** _." he whispered._

_"No child is that special Nono…you are not some naïve, gullible fool to be taken by such flights of fancy."_

_"Cynicism does not become you, dear Reborn. No, I'm not chasing after my own version of fool's gold, old friend. But this child is special in ways I can't even tell you._ **_He is special_ ** _, Reborn._ _He is_ _—I've seen it in him. Inside him—there within lies a spirit so vast it could encompass the world. A spirit so pure—so true—it may finally wash away our-!"_

****

**_"_ ** **_You blind fool_ ** **_._ ** _Are you setting yourself up to fail? Is this a means to capitulate for you?"_

_"No…no, not at all." He reached out and for the first time grasped the hand of his companion in his. He looked deep into fathomless eyes and tried with all his might to communicate his conviction. "You must understand Reborn, this is the child that would change our world. When I met him-!"_

_" **You met him as a child**_ **_,"_ ** _Reborn retorted, waving a hand cuttingly. He stared at his old friend and tried his damnedest to make him see logic staring right at him. "A_ _child_ _uncorrupted by the evils of the world, untainted by the bitter pill of pain, untested and unaware of the darkness, depravity and dangers that lurks behind even the most human of masks. You are pinning the fate not just of your_ _Famiglia_ _but that of your very soul on a child that has never known hunger or fear, or deprivation or agony. A child who has never been beaten down by those around him, by life and by the choices he has made. You are praying for a_ _child_ _to do what nine Mafia Heads born into this cursed lifestyle couldn't and save your blood-soaked_ _Famiglia's_ _name and cleanse the sins accumulated by four hundred years of bloodshed and betrayal? Tell me again you aren't simply fooling yourself Timoteo." he asked bluntly._

_Reborn was prepared for Timoteo to explain his thoughts; he steeled himself against the man's evocative and persuasive words. He was prepared for the torrent of arguments and well-meaning seemingly logical elaborations the Ninth has been known for but what he got instead was a single quietly spoken word._

**_"Yes."_ **

****

_He closed his eyes. In denial or defeat, he couldn't truly say. He knows_ _now_ _that nothing he could say or do would hold sway against his old friend's determination. He could've done something—anything had Timoteo said anything else—but dissuading him when he was like this was nigh on impossible._

_"You are a more than just a fool Timoteo. You are much, much worse. What you are,_ _Padrone_ _, is a_ ** _sentimental_** _fool."_

_The old man had the temerity to gift him with his signature benevolent smile, complete with twinkling golden eyes... "You can refuse, you know that. You appeared when I summoned you. Your debt has been repaid."_

_Reborn allowed himself to snort. "Only I can say when my debts have been paid. No one—_ _not even you_ _—can tell me when my debts have been dispensed with. This, whatever this is that you have made—this is a risky gamble."_

_"I know. But when the stakes are this high, there's no other way but to brave all the odds and win it." Timoteo finally gave a genuine smile, "Why else did you think I chose you?"_

  

* * *

 

**Flash forward**

**_Sawada Residence_ **

**_Namimori, Japan_ **

Reborn cast another assessing look at the house and its occupant. He spent a few seconds staring at the young candidate’s mother and wondered was there was anything of his sire within him or was he completely his mother's child and if so, what _part_ of _him_ did Timoteo really want.

 "I know why you choose _me_ Timoteo…I only hope this boy knows just what he's about to get himself into when you chose him."

 

* * *

 

**Title Translation: _NEI TUOI OCCHI_ = "IN YOUR EYES"**

 

 


	8. Testare Le Acque

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> Yes, I know. KHR still belongs to the one and only Akira Amano-Sensei. I'm nothing but a lowly thief purloining snippets of his creations for my own benefit. Now that my self-esteem has been ravaged and reduced to ashes time to continue. I know that my story is progressing at a ridiculously slow pace but I want to make sure I know where I want to put my Tsuna. I'm no good with fight scenes. I wouldn't even know how to begin. The manga version of Tsuna is a bit more childish than the anime and I want a nice balance that would make sense why he drew so many people to him—what made such a boy into such a powerful charismatic Boss. I wanted his humanity and the humanity of those around him—and that—I'm afraid isn't easy to find or write about. But I will try my best.
> 
> I know only how to create introspective looking mindset so please bear with me. I want to get to know the motivations behind each of them. And how KHR might have developed if it was a more introspective tale.
> 
> November 2013 Update:   
> I've spent some time re-reading this work and frankly I'm surprised I managed to get this far. I know that I couldn't avoid the mention of flames of weapons or even the battles but I am trying my best to sublimate it for the humanity and drama I so desperately crave.
> 
> 2014 Update:   
> Tweaking is HAAARRDD but interestingly enough, it makes me love my stories more. This one more so since I keep discovering new things.
> 
> 2017: Have I mentioned that re-reading takes a god-awful while?

**Chapter 8: TESTARE LE ACQUE**

  
_**He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.** _  
_**And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.** _  
_Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146_

* * *

 

_TSUNAYOSHI POV_

_His hands were trembling..._

_But when were they ever really steady anyway? When was the last time they did anything of worth save shake and tremble and fumble and drop things they failed to hold on to? From early on, nothing his hands grasped ever stayed within its frail hold._

**_Nothing._** _Not the toys his mother allowed him to bring to school and later on the bullies stole from him. Not the comics that he bought with his earnestly saved allowance that would later be destroyed willfully by older kids he didn't even know. All his hands could ever hold on to were the cold, grimy feel of his own body at the end of each beating in the playgrounds._

_His hands had always been useless—a pair of extraneous appendages that he just happened to be born with, capable of little else but wiping away tears as they trailed along his mother's pale cheeks whenever she would allow him to comfort her, capable of nothing more than clutching at his blankets to yank them over his head when nightmares haunt him so that he could hide from the world and those that seek to bring him pain, capable of little else except flailing about as he fell time and time again to the unforgiving ground as kids stronger and more cunning than he forced him to kneel and bear and endure the humiliation, the name-calling and the pain._

_They were worse than useless—they were inadequate for whatever need he ever had for them—save using their very presence to staunch the flow of his blood or stifle the cries that slipped past tightly pinched lips. All they are to him are silent witnesses—flesh-and-bone testament that bore the untold number of stories and marks that proved time and time again why he deserves the school-ground bullies degrading sobriquet that seemed branded onto his very skin._

**_NO GOOD_ **

****

_His body was protesting the latest onslaught of pain..._

_And why wouldn't it? All it has ever known outside of his home was pain. That's all he ever felt whenever he was in the company of those not of his blood. And the most frustrating part was that his body experience pain even when he was by himself. His body had always been at constant war with his mind, his very nature—as if it were two entities that never could achieve any kind of accord. The results after all, were laughably obvious to anyone with eyes. He was a fairly useless for everything and anything that required even the smallest effort and coordination. And today was certainly no exception._

_His knees were knocking back in fatigue and his arms feel like they're about to fall off from exhaustion as muscles unused to so much physical exertion burned from the act of cleaning up the entire gym all by himself, of putting away the sports equipment his class used just hours before. His body only wanted to dump him on the floor and try to jumpstart its recovery. As he lay prostrate on the cool damp wooden floors, he contemplated the bitter truth that given the actual chance he would bet that his own body would to leave him in a heap and divorce him if it could._

_But then again, when did his body ever listen to him anyways? It hardly ever did anything he wanted. If he intended to glide smoothly like he watched others do, he ended up sliding like a drunken sailor, when he attempted to jump even the smallest height his legs inevitably end up tangled together like a pretzel causing him to bang and crash against everything and everyone around him. Heck, even the simplest act of locomotion like walking is a trial of errors on a daily basis. He could count himself lucky if he could walk the requisite three blocks from his house to the school without tripping over his own feet even once. He couldn't even remember the last time he managed to clear his own house's gate without banging against it or without hitting the doorjamb while passing through any single one._

_His body was just like that hateful nickname they gave him. His body was just like the bullies that he's been living with ever since he could remember. Doing what it wanted, whenever it wanted, in whatever fashion it decided. What did it matter that his mind screamed instructions loud enough to deafen any other person had they been able to hear it? What did it matter that he battled his own body for control each and every day and still he couldn't figure out why nothing he never did ended up the way he intended? What did it matter that every night he would pray desperately that he would wake up with a body that doesn't sabotage its very owner every step of the way? That he wished ever since he could remember that for once he would wake up with a body that didn't self-destruct on its own without any regard to the consequences?_

_His body, his mind, his entire being—heck, his entire **existence** save for  his mother was like that hateful nickname he couldn't live down, couldn't deny, and couldn't erase from everyone's mind—was firmly and undeniably caught in the same cruel, unforgiving fate as the rest of him._

**_NO GOOD._ **

 

**_His heart was aching…_ ** _And why wouldn't it? Why shouldn't his heart be allowed to protest his silence when he knows some part of him wished he had called out and stopped his classmate from leaving him all alone? But what good would that do? It's not like he could actually make himself say the words anyway. The guilt gnawing at him wouldn't allow him to abandon what he rightfully believed to be his just punishment any more than he could say the words already causing blood to pool inside his mouth from his bitten lip._

_He has already forgotten when he fell into the habit of biting back words so that he wouldn't utter the things that sometimes pop unheedingly into his head. He has forgotten how often he had to go around with the taste of blood in his mouth—from the number of times he bit his lip to stop himself from crying out—in fear, in sadness, in pain. He had had to bite them just to resist haranguing the idiot that his mother foolishly allowed herself to be shackled to and whom he owed dubious biological debt._

_How long as it been since he hadn't felt that gnawing ache that silence left inside of him? No one ever listened anyways—not his heartbroken mother who barely clings to a shaky resemblance of life and sanity by keeping herself busy and turning a blind eye to his frequent injuries. Not the teachers who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to a slow student who has never shown any promise or any burning desire to better himself, content simply to remain within the status quo. Not the students who were too self-absorbed, too indifferent, too blinded by clichés and youthful expectations and peer pressure to see that he was just like them. Not his classmates who were too busy putting him down so that they could feel better about themselves by believing that their lives couldn't have been that bad if there was still someone worse off than they were. Someone like him._

**_NO GOOD._ **

 

Slowly he started putting away the mop he just finished using, leaning it—wet tendrils wrung out—up against one wall, empty bucket next to it before closing the storage closet's door as carefully as possible. He refused to look at the dark space any longer than he had to— remembering all too well the number of times he ended up inside of one, crammed in like something one used up then dismissed and discarded.

 

With a shake of his head at the dark memories, he turned away and walked towards the gym's door, absent-mindedly picking up his bag when his knees finally gave out and buckled beneath him. Staggering, he barely found enough strength to slide pathetically down one wall and land on his much abused bottom. It didn't matter that the gym floors have grown ice cold after he mopped it clean nor did it matter to him that he wasn't really sure he has anything left for the inevitable push he would need later to stand up. For now at least there was no one to see him collapse in such ignominious heap. The idea make him chuckle bitterly.

_What did that one thing matter anyway? So what if the entire school saw? It wasn't the first time he would be in an embarrassing situation and he could bet every yen he would receive from now until he retires from whatever dead-end job he ends up in that it wouldn't be the last. There were very few certainties in life but his inevitable slide into obscurity doesn’t seem that far off to him. And though few may care, he has already resigned himself to accept it._

The entire school already had an arsenal of cringe-inducing, blackmail-worthy material on him. One more thing wouldn't make much difference to the way the students saw him. He would be lucky to graduate without an entire section of the yearbook dedicated to his utter failure and hopelessness. On the other hand, he might just have the unfortunate luck of being left out of the yearbook if someone forgets about him. That notion wasn’t entirely out of the possibility. Either way, with the things looking the way it is, he doubts if his high school experience would ever amount to anything that wouldn't embarrass him or haunt him for the rest of his life.

 

Certainly elementary was just the opening salvo introducing him to his miserable cognomen and reputation. Middle school is shaping up to be even worse than those six miserable years. Three years of exquisite torture and he could expect high school to be even worse though that didn't bear thinking of. He needed the illusion that things might get a bit better. Perhaps he could convince his mother to move address. That would give him a fresh start and maybe even allow them not to be found by his infuriating sire. That’s a win-win in his mind and certainly something he should consider.

 

He didn't know how long he sat there; it could've been a few seconds to a minute to even a few hours. The length of time was immaterial. Time can be funny that way for him. The times he's been happy has been few and far between and always seemed to pass all too quickly. But the for some reason his misery lasts almost twice as long, to the point that he could recall each excruciating minute he had to live through, each one extending until each second felt like a minute, each minute felt an hour, each hour took on the nightmarish quality of an eternity.

 

With a sad shake of his head, he tried to clear his mind and his heart of the bitterness that could've easily tainted him from within and that's not a good thing. How he knows that fact, he couldn't explain or answer fully with any form of logic or sense—understanding only on an instinctive level that he couldn't allow himself to wallow in resentment because that would be a very bad thing if it ever happened. But that's not to say he doesn't get mad or emotional. If anything—he gets too invested in his emotions at lot of the time. He just knows enough to vent and then let it go. Otherwise, he would’ve already drowned in darkness and have nothing to show for it.

 

He is not _saint_ —he gets sad, lonely, insecure, and bewildered. He can also be pessimistic, he gets mad, frustrated, even embittered from time to time. But no matter what he feels at certain moments—he is certainly relieved enough to know that no matter what, he has never allowed anger or animosity to dwell inside him for very long. It just wasn't in his nature and he doubts he has the kind of will to nurture hatred or bitterness or even good old-fashioned rage for very long.

 

His mother has always displayed such easy-going, forgiving nature and that is what he has imbibed from his earliest years. It would take an act of God, he believes, to even sway that truth from inside him. He wished fervently ever since that his resolve would never be tempted. He couldn't get any more broken than he already is. He couldn’t afford to hurt his mother any more than he had already nor could he afford to hurt her like the man she married to.

He knew, even as a child, that there's a level of hatred you can only keep for so long before it takes up permanent residence inside of you. His heart's already filled to capacity with his father's absence, his mother's sadness and his own glaring record of inadequacy and failure. He really doesn't think he could afford anymore hate taking room inside of him and still be able to smile when his mother looks at him nor when he faces himself in the mirror. He seriously doubts he could look straight into her eyes if he has allowed himself to give in to his anger. It would kill him to cause her pain and he couldn't imagine what kind of pain he would cause her if he resorted to lying to her.

 

Leaning back, he had an excellent view of the world outside the gym's enveloping quiet. He decided to give in to one of his less than stellar habits—talking to himself—as he took his fill of the school grounds, afforded a view he normally had enough chance or time to enjoy. It wasn't like there was anyone around to hear him.

_"So I'm no good with subjects. No good with athletics either…and anyone with half a brain cell should know there's a reason I go to school…"_

 

He heard himself chuckle self-consciously and found amusement from the fact that he could feel so self-conscious even in the privacy of an echoing, empty school gymnasium. Sighing, he tried to get to his feet and found that the trembling in his knees had finally died down. Gingerly, he took a couple of steps and found that the brief interval had gone a long way towards steadying him on his feet. He was about to scoop up his bag when he heard voices outside. Turning, he peered outside the gym's windows and his eyes widened in surprise and cheer.

 

There, walking outside were two girls and one of them was his reason for braving ridicule and failure on a daily basis. And that reason happens to be the one girl he's pretty darn certain will never be within his realm of possibility even if everything else inside of him finally worked like they should.

 

 _Sasagawa Kyoko._ _Namimori Middle School's current idol_.

 

Honey brown locks and bright golden brown eyes that drew the attention of nearly everyone and an innocent smile that could and did render most boys in school tongue-tied and dithering. _Or maybe that was just him?_ Reminding himself that eavesdroppers never heard anything good, least of all, about themselves, he nevertheless moved closer to the window to try and catch snatches of the light-hearted conversation that passed between Sasagawa Kyoko and her best friend Hana. He watched as a faint blush splash across the pale flawless cheeks of the pretty girl when Hana-san mentioned an upper classman. And as if fate itself summoned the man, not a minute passed and he came waltzing by and struck up a conversation with the school's idol.

 

He tried to stem the sour aftertaste of disappointment coating his tongue, acid churning in his belly and turned away. His motivation clearly was engaged in a situation he had no chance of remedying. It wasn't like he had a chance any way and with Mochida-senpai in the picture; his odds just dwindled from the realm of the improbable to the insultingly foregone conclusion of never.

 

He might as well head on home. _It's not like anyone would look for him._ And as pathetic as that might sound—even in the privacy of his mind—he knows that his entire class has conveniently forgotten all about him and his teachers would only remember because he would be a notation in their notebook and a convenient admonition to use for others on what to not become. He knows what his role has been for some time and while he may not have chosen such a role, there were worse fates than his own pitiful one.

 

* * *

 

Sawada Nana was about to step into her kitchen to check on available ingredients and the content of her fridge for the evening's meal when her ears picked up the sound of the doorbell being rung. For a split second her hands clenched nervously and her heart stumbled in its beat— _fear, primitive and irrational_ —stabbed her psyche and she wondered suddenly if her son was alright. Shaking free of her fanciful and foolish thoughts, she walked towards the front door and with a smile fixed firmly on her lips; she opened the door and gave out a sweet thrill of welcome.

 

"Hai, konnichiwa."

" _Ciaossu. Sono venuto per tuo figlio, Sawada Nana."_

"W-hat did you say?"

"I've come for your son, Sawada Nana. I'm here for Sawada Tsunayoshi, future heir and

Tenth successor to the Vongola Famiglia."

 

* * *

 

_**Title Translation: TESTARE LE ACQUE = "TESTING THE WATERS"** _

 


	9. Un Tacito Accordo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:  
> I suppose I must endure saying this again and again while I write for this fandom. KHR isn't mine and at the rate of my writing skills, nothing like it ever will.  
> Story Note:  
>  I've always wondered if Nana hadn't entertained just the slightest fear or trepidation regarding the upheavals in her son's life. I seriously doubt that she also remained clueless all those years regarding the nature of her husband's true occupation. This is my take on how a mother who has long feared changes would react if some unspoken change came to throw everything in her world—and her son's—topsy-turvy.  
> 2014 UPDATE: I knew when I decided to tinker with this story that it wouldn't be the  
> easiest of things to do. But re-reading everything and wondering how I ever began it in the  
> first place are two very distinctive things. Still—I really, really like how this turned out and  
> I'm just finessing some things here.  
> 2017: I have fine-tuned some of the lines. If you see anything off—please tell me.

**Chapter Nine: UN TACITO ACCORDO**

  
_**"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made.** _  
_**Destiny is made known silently."** _  
_Agnes DeMille_

* * *

 

Nana blinked. The lines of her forehead creased and her eyebrows—so normally clear and untroubled—are rapidly growing furrowed. There was a loud buzzing in her ear and for a moment or two she wondered idly if she really should've taken that vitamin pill she ignored _that_ morning because she was certain there must be something wrong with her hearing. She took a deep breath and tried to settle the butterflies of unease that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her stomach.

_She must be hearing things. There's no way this small child could've said the things he did. Why, for the briefest moment she was certain the little darling speaking in a foreign language quite fluidly. There's no way a foreign child would come knocking on her door out of the blue! How silly of her to even think of such a thing!_

 

Rallying her thoughts and gathering her composure to her, she tried to pass off the odd episode to hunger pangs or exhaustion and smiled brilliantly at her wayward guest. She was determined to get control of the situation or else she might seriously consider therapy. _Who knows what kind of malady could be affecting her today and it just wouldn't do to expose innocent children and her own Tsu-kun to it if she could help it, now would it?_

"I'm sorry sweetie; I think I might have misheard you. Can you say that again please? And where is your mommy pun’kin?"

 

She looked at the small figure that stood so still in front of her and she found herself wishing he would fidget, squirm or even shift his stance. _Children weren't normally this still, were_ _they?_ Somehow, for perhaps the first time in her life, Sawada Nana wished so strongly in her heart for something that did not involve the continued protection of her absent husband or the happiness of her child. She found herself desperately wishing in the depths of her heart and mind that this slight figure that stood in front of her was nothing more than what he appeared to be—a simple, well-dressed lost _child_.

 

She wished for his eyes to fill with wariness or even tears born from wariness in the face of a stranger because she was prepared for those things—she knows how to deal with those things. She isn't so sure she's capable of dealing with a child with solemn dark eyes that seemed older, wiser and more enigmatic than any she has ever seen. Especially when viewed from beneath the concealing shadows of the brim of his fedora.

 

She didn’t want to look closely at the fact that while her ears didn’t fail to register the high-lilting voice of a child his words certainly made her pause. She wished for a sweet voice to tell her that he needed something simple and inconsequential like selling cookies or looking for a lost pet. She wanted to hear a sweet, childish voice to speak to her about childish concerns with a kind of desperation she couldn't even begin to understand.

 

The figure in front of her didn't oblige her though. He didn't fidget, squirm or shifted on his tiny, leather-clad feet. He remained absolutely still, his body controlled like a beautifully maintained and streamlined machine. His eyes didn't fill with anything but uncanny depth and sharp perceptiveness. His voice when he condescended to speak once more was soft, sweet and absolutely chilling in their solemnity. That the voice spoke in cool, fluent Japanese this time around didn't give her any further room to relegate the encounter as something she could've only imagined.

 

"I am not a figment of your imagination Sawada Nana. I am not a little lost baby. And you didn't mishear anything. I am here for Decimo. I am here for your son."

 

With those words Nana abandoned her naïve wish to make this unusual guest out to be a simple child. She rounded on him like a lioness who finally realized that this small intruder was something that poses a threat to her and hers. For probably the first time ever in her life, Nana found a vein of fierceness erupting inside her and it was all she could do not to snarl her words out to the impassive figure standing so steadfast and remote in front of her.

 

" _What did you just say?"_

"Must I constantly repeat myself?"

 

This time she gave in to the impulse and finally growled. She really didn't care anymore that she was being rude. Or that she was actually on the verge of snarling at a small, defenseless child. _Or something that looked like a child_.

 

Whatever _he_ was—whoever he was—he’s a disturbance she didn't want to be close to her a moment longer. She wanted to reach out and haul the little strange man-child by the lapels of his neat little black suit and shake him until his baby-teeth rattled and he cried for his mommy. She may not possess a mean bone in her body by choice but that didn’t mean she couldn’t delve into her inner bitch should the need arise and arose it did.

 

" _You bloody will repeat yourself until you tell me something that make sense!"_

If the little man child was surprised or taken aback by the fierceness of her response he certainly gave no indication of it. Nana waited for him to speak. Waited for him to tell her that she misunderstood. Waited for him to tell her that she was wrong. Waited for him to break this suddenly, uncomfortable confrontation.

 

"Perhaps this discussion would progress much better inside. I don't want to say anything further out here where anyone passing by could overhear every little thing."

 

Nana was appalled by the scrupulously polite words and her own antagonistic attitude but she refused to back down. With a grudging nod, she opened the door a bit more and waited for her unusual caller to precede her into the house. They settled in the kitchen, partially because it was closest available space and because in times of distress or unrest, Nana found the kitchen to be her one sanctuary, a safe, warm space that never failed to remind her of home and hearth. And right now, she needed the reminder like never before.

 

This little man-child was threatening something precious to her and she wasn't about to give him any quarter if she could help it. This little man-child who is still looking at her with those deep, dark, impassive eyes, assessing her, pigeon-holing her through some kind of mental catalogue of his was here to disrupt the quiet placid routine of her home. She wasn't about to roll out the red carpet for such a disruptive presence. A decidedly awkward pause settled between them but luckily manners ingrained since birth reared its head and gave her something to do.

 

"I—w-would y-you like something to drink?"

"Espresso, if you would be so kind."

 

Nana gave a short nod and busied her hands working. Reaching up into one of the many overhead cabinets in her kitchen, she located the coffee maker her husband would sometimes use when he was home. Placing it safely on the counter, she turned away and walked straight into the depths of her pantry to look for the bag of beans he insisted were the best and she kept in stock simply because she never knew when he'll need them. Holding the small canister in her arms, she tried to compose herself in the privacy of the small room. Drawing deep breaths, she tried to quell the icy snake of tension threatening to incapacitate her.

_I won't think about it yet. No…I must've made a mistake._ _I must have_ _. I would apologize, I know I will. Yes, I made a mistake and making a good cup would go a long way towards my apology later on. Yes…_

Walking back into her kitchen, her self-possession firmly in place, she found that she could move quite normally when she didn't actively think of why there was a stranger in her kitchen. She carefully measured the beans into the machine and poured the requisite amount of water to make at least a few good cups of the invigorating brew. Plugging the machine, she turned towards the fridge and withdrew the cake she had make the night before when sleep had, for some reason, eluded her. The memory brought a tiny, reluctant smile to her tense lips.

_I guess I should be thankful my sudden insomnia served some good. I have something to pair with the coffee._

She tried not to think too much about the coincidence that the cake she made on a whim was actually a Tiramisu, of all things, a dessert she normally only made when she was missing her husband—a dessert that for some reason, her son also quite adored despite the intense coffee flavoring in it and his inherent dislike for any heavily-flavored dish. Especially knowing how and why she felt whenever she made it.

_You would think something, somewhere out there gave her insomnia just so that she could have a cake so conveniently at hand._

 

Dismissing her steadily fanciful thoughts from her mind, she turned towards the simple routine of reaching into a drawer for a cake knife, cutting out a small wedge and hunting down the appropriate fork for the waiting pastry. For a few minutes, lost in the minute things that accompanied the simple act of serving a guest, she forgot the reason for the tension that gripped her just minutes before. Her nerves settled a bit and she found herself behaving almost normally. When the machine pinged to announce that the coffee was done, it was a simple matter to take a cup and saucer from one of the cupboards, pours the aromatic brew, place it and the small dish already containing the slice of cake and a small fork on a tray and bring everything to the table.

 

Placing the small cup in front of her silent guest, she waved a hand towards the cake slice and invited him to partake of the simple repast. He gave her a small nod of thanks and took a cautious sip of the brew. She caught the brief flash of surprise and pleasure in his eyes before he put the cup down and stared at her in silence once more. She stood next to her guest and tried to muster her courage but when she spoke, her nerves betrayed her anxiety.

 

" _Please_ …tell me…I—I don't really think I understand what you—said. I mean—I must've misheard you out there and now—"

 

"I apologize for surprising you. I was told to come here and I assumed that you had been informed of the nature of my business with your son. I was sent here for the one they call Tsunayoshi. I am to be his tutor."

 

Relief made her knees buckle and found herself sinking into one of the kitchen chairs gratefully. Her hands visibly shook and relieved tears gathered in her eyes. Wiping at them surreptitiously with an unsteady hand, she gave out a soft chuckle and smiled at her guest for the first time since she answered the door. Reprieve made her giddy and words gushed out of her lips in a nervous, babbling torrent.

 

 _"Tutor_? Oh...gods and here I was-! I am so sorry for what I said before! Goodness, I thought you said something else completely! Do forgive me! Truly! You see, for a minute there I thought you said something else entirely—something about my son being heir to something—and I know that's just absurd-!"

 

The flood of words however dried up quickly when her guest gave a sharp shake of his head. The ice in her stomach that almost thawed came back with a fury she could no longer hope to extinguish. Dread made her normally cheerful voice tremble as she forced numbed lips to move and form words once more.

 

"I-I-I didn't—you—did say those things didn't you?"

 

"No, Sawada Nana. You didn't mishear me. I did say I am here for the future heir of the Vongola Famiglia. I am here to be the tutor to Sawada Tsunayoshi, the future Vongola Decimo."

 

"W-what—did you—my Tsuna!?"

 

"Yes. I am here for to take charge of the training of the Vongola heir. I was told that your husband-!"

**"** **NO**!" She jumped to her feet so suddenly that her chair fell back in a loud violent crash behind her. **_"NO! NO!"_** she continued shrieking, her voice rising with every repetition of the word. Her eyes had grown wild and fierce and haunted. The little man-child simply continued to sip his coffee quietly and looked at her in silence, waiting…simply waiting for her outburst to die down and when it did, Nana found herself on her knees, arms clenched around her middle as tears poured out from wide, terrified brown eyes.

 

" _That isn't true_! You just can't come here and say those things to me! You can't just sit there so impassively and tell me these lies! I refuse to believe that—!" arms trembling in anger or fear continued to clench around the pale, crushed fabric of the apron she wore like a shield around herself, her head no longer bowed in denial displayed a face that etched with a deep and disbelieving sorrow.

 

His voice when it came was still controlled, but there was a curios thread of sympathy that laced his words though he doesn't wonder at all if the woman whose world he just rocked would've cared for them. He wanted to cover his bases and make sure that he wouldn’t antagonize the one he needed cooperation the most.

 

"I do not lie and your refusal to accept matters that exist now is not something that I would tolerate nor encourage. This matter has been settled with your husband's consent and there is little either one of us could do to amend the situation at hand."

 

Her voice was thin with grief when she spoke again, her brown eyes now bore the wounded look of distress of someone who has had her entire world turned upside down.

 

"He _promised me_ that **he** will keep _our son_ **safe**. He _promised me_ that he will never be involved in all that— _he promised me_! He gave me his word that this path of life will never come to pass!" she swiped angrily at the tears that continued to flow down her cheeks and tried once more to control the wild beating of her aching heart. She almost missed the softly spoken words that once again reminded her that her current nightmare was not the kind she would wake from.

 

"He said that you would understand. That only you could."

****

**_"Well I bloody don’t!_** I don’t understand anything that’s happening here, do you hear me?! I don’t understand and _I don’t want to!”_  Her chest heaved in apparent distress, her eyes wide with alarm. “ _Understand what exactly?"_ she blazed. " _Understand that he's breaking his promise to me? Like all the others he has given me over the years? Understand that he's putting our only child in danger? That he is condoning having some strange man take my child away like what I feel and what I want doesn't matter in the least? That I am to simply smile and give a fond wave as you steal away the sole reason I have in my life_? Tell me, you bastard, just what the _hell_ is it that I'm supposed to understand?!"

"That whatever we say here and now, whatever promises that were made and broken—this thing with your son is inevitable—it _will_ come to pass. There is very little that you or I could do about it."

 

She pinned the man—for despite physically appearing to be anything but—he was most definitely one—with her agonized, tear-filled gaze. She wished, in the very depths of her heart, that she had ignored the door that day. That she had taken her son and simply went on a vacation without telling anyone least of all her fickle minded husband. That she had been anywhere but at home when this particular guest came calling. That her husband for once could have done his duties to _his_ family and told her that he was sending someone to pull the very rug from beneath her feet.

_"How can you ask me to_ _just understand_?" she whispered hoarsely, her throat raw now that she'd given vent to her emotions. In the back of her mind, she's grateful her son wasn't going to be around for a while. Her little tuna-fish has never seen her lose control and it's not something she wanted him to _ever_ see. It was enough that he has seen her in tears when she succumbs to her loneliness. It would not do to burden him with her rage. It was not something a child should ever have to witness. _"What am I supposed to understand in all of this? Nothing about what you said makes any sense to me, so how can you just sit there and ask that I do nothing but understand that you are taking my entire world away from me? What the hell am I supposed to do now? Accept this and move on like nothing's changed?"_

His voice, eerily composed and child-like, comforting even its incongruity managed to convey a sense of sympathy she had not expected. His small hands—delicate and small— reached out to grasp hers and she found herself clinging to the surprisingly strong grip from such small appendages.

 

"All that and more. Do you hear me Sawada Nana? That is what _I_ expect you to do now that this situation has come to pass. _Accept. Understand. Move past it. Go forward._ He told me that you will understand—he trusts that you will and that you will do what must be done. What needs to be done."

 

Nana shook her head as if she thinking that if she did it often enough, quickly enough, she could deny everything happening around her. She wanted to hug denial to her breast and hold it close. She wanted to close her eyes and forget everything that happened to her when she woke up that morning. She wanted to turn back the hands of time and demand that her husband pen his vow in blood. She wanted time to stop and allow her to think. Most of all she wanted a way to stop the truth that seemed determined to wrench everything she cared for from her.

 

"I c-can't—!"

 

"You can and you will. Your husband is not a man that trusts easily or praise lightly. He knows full well that he is breaking his promise to you but he knows even more that you will do whatever is necessary to help your son. Don't make a liar out of him."

 

Her voice trembled with the tears she continued to quietly shed. Tears enough to choke her breath and increase the pain writhing inside of her. She could hardly recognize her own voice when words once again spilled past lips already stretched thin by tension and pain.

 

" _Why?_ Tell me, damn you _why him?_ What do you need from my poor son? He isn't like his father. He is not a leader of men—he doesn’t like being around them much, truth be told so can he be what you’re saying? He doesn't crave control over other people. He's just a little boy."

 

She shook her head slowly and the words continued to tumble out. Finding some form of comfort in the chance to air out her fear—hoping the words would lance out the burgeoning hole burning through her heart.

 

"My husband assured me when my son was born that he wasn't in line to inherit anything and that that would be for the best. That he would never be considered for the position of heir—he promised that he would do everything in his power to keep us out of _that_ world. He said that he will never allow that world to come into our lives and that that was the reason he had to stay away."

 

"And he did. Why do you think your son had such a long time of freedom? Think Sawada Nana—your child could've been claimed at any point after his birth. Your husband's standing in the family was all that it took to keep that decision at bay. He tried valiantly to keep that promise. He tried to have that decision nullified, concealed every trace of you in the family records—stayed away for years at a time and fended off every inquiry that would lead to you and your son until the very last possible second to prevent this from happening. But this was unavoidable. In the end, even he had no choice."

 

She stared at her kitchen, her quiet safe haven and wondered why its usual magic wasn't reaching her. _Why it hasn't given her the usual warmth she could usually count on whenever she was surrounded by its familiar tools and spaces?_ She stared unseeing at everything around her and tried to recall the words that she told herself all those years ago when her husband first breached the truth about the world he inhabited—the world that owns him much more than his own wife and child ever would.

 

Her voice, this time around was weary, frightened and resigned yet oddly still—not bitter. Sad, acquiescent and worried, yes, but not truly enraged and the man-child who had to witness it all wondered how she could remain so forgiving in the midst of what easily might have been her worst nightmare come to life. It would’ve been so easy for her to throw him out and abscond with her son—not that she’ll succeed but he wouldn’t find it odd for her to do a runner. Instead, here she was—tear-filled and angry, of course—but she hasn’t been irrational or hysterical.

 

"I've already accepted his devotion to his duty. I've resigned myself to the truth that he belongs more—body, mind and soul—to this famiglia of his than he ever would be with his own. I've accepted the fact that he will spend more time away from us than with us but I grew to accept that it because he promised me that it was the only way he could keep our son out of that world. But now, now you come here and tell me this. That all he did—all the sacrifices I’ve made—that we both endured—were for naught." Eyes the color of warm earth now turned to his in lost anguish as she whimpered, " _Isn't there someone else? Anyone_ _else you could take instead of him? Please. Find someone else. There must be someone else._ " she asked pleaded softly. _“He’s all I have.”_

 

Even as inured as he was to the darkest and foulest nature of man, he found himself shaken at the depth of anguish in the woman’s eyes and he found himself softening his tone even further, hoping against every god out there that he manages to come off as reassuring as he damned well could. This woman didn’t deserve the hell he was raining upon her and the truth that he couldn’t do anything about it was a bitter pill to swallow. "There is no one else—there _couldn't be anyone else_. Only your son is left. _Only him._ He is the last direct descendant of the founder of the Vongola. He must take his rightful place because there is no one else in the world who could take it in his stead."

 

Her eyes stared right at her unwanted caller and wished she could convince him that her little Tsunayoshi couldn't be the one he wanted. She looked deep into this mysterious man-child's dark eyes and willed him to understand that he must've made some mistake even as her own voice falters with resignation, fear and loss.

 

" _You_ don't _understand._ My son is a _simple_ boy—just a simple, clumsy child...so unaware of the dangers the world— _your world—_ could bring. You ask for the impossible. He can't be— he couldn't be—you don't understand…my son is so guileless, so sweet and innocent—so very gentle-natured… _he's just a child_ …he doesn't even like to confront people and he doesn't know how to take care of himself, let alone an organization like yours—!"

 

He cut her off with firmness that even her own fears couldn't beset, telling her his discovery not knowing the obscured and unexpected kernel of truth in the details he would reveal. "Your son has been taking care of himself for fifteen years now. Based on the reports we've compiled on him, he has spent more years being bullied than he hasn't. Believe me—your son has depths to him he has successful hidden inside him."

 

Earth-toned eyes widened in dismay and disbelief even as fresh tears cascaded once more upon pale cheeks that grew even more pallid with grief. "My son—my _poor_ Tsunayoshi…how could I have not known—oh my god, what have I done-? How could I not know what’s my son has been suffering from?"

 

"It isn't your fault. There isn't anything you could've done because your son chose the means with which to deal with his situation. And though I understand your sorrow now, you must see that he has already known danger and lived through it. It is a testament to his coping skills that he has managed to do that for so long without causing you undue worry.

 

So, believe me now when I tell you that I have every faith and confidence that he can become a great man someday."

 

"A great man that you mean to take away from everything and everyone he has ever known. A great man whom you will mold and change and then steal away as soon as you are able—tell me why should I put my trust in your words and assurance when I know you mean to rip my son away from me and turn him into someone I may no longer recognize?"

 

Dark eyes finally peered from beneath the shadow of a well-trimmed fedora. "I am a man of my word Sawada Nana and I promise to you—I am here to return your son to you."

 

The words caught her by surprise. Wiping the trail of tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand, she stared at the man-child sitting calmly in front of her and stated warily, "My son has always been here—"

 

"No. Your son has spent the better part of his life held back. Tethered and chained. I am here to set him free."

 

Nana shook her head in confusion and stared at the man-child once more, "I don't understand—"

 

"You will. As soon as I begin, you will understand. All I ask is that you entrust your son into my hands. I promise you I am here to return to your side the real Sawada Tsunayoshi."

 

"And once that happens?"

 

"Then and only then can you rightfully claim that I will take him from your side. But when that day comes—"

"If—!"

 

" _When the day comes for Decimo to join with his Famiglia,_ I trust that you will allow him to do so with your own hands and with your blessings Sawada Nana."

 

* * *

 

Title Translation: **_UN TACITO ACCORDO_ = "A SILENT AGREEMENT"**

 

 


	10. Trattare Con Il Diavolo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> Standard disclaimer applies whenever the question of ownership arises. KHR isn't mine.  
> Now as for this story, I am happy to note that I am taking my time thinking about how Tsuna and the others would meet and the delicate question of flames and its role in their lives. I cannot just NOT write about it—it wouldn't be right. So I am easing myself towards it. Sorry if I seem so uncertain, but as I mentioned before—I want to explore their humanity more than their collective 'super powers.' I am certainly curious about Reborn's inner monologue all throughout the story. On a side note though, I am eager to think about the other members of Tsuna's family.
> 
> 11-09-2013 Update:   
> Final tweak of the parts I've written. Setting the stage for the next chapters featuring the training and the guardians. Crossing my fingers and hoping for luck.
> 
> 2014 Update:   
> The work has slowed down considerably, I know. Real life can be as unforgiving as the harshest task master around. And to be honest—I kind of lost the voice that spoke to me regarding this story and it's only recently that I'm getting the faintest murmurs back.
> 
> 2015:   
> Reading and re-reading. Still surprised to find out that words-when they feel like coming-comes like a torrential rain.
> 
> 2017: What in the HELL was I on when I made this?

**Chapter Ten:** **TRATTARE CON IL DIAVOLO**

  
**_"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand,_ **  
**_He or She alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."_ **  
_Voltaire_

* * *

  
**TSUNAYOSHI**

The long walk home was a familiar one; a journey he has made hundreds of times and in a hundred different frames of mind and states of being. He had gone through the same street, the same shortcuts, the same winding alleys and back ways and yet each and every single time it was different.

 

Though today certainly, was not an isolated case—he has been known to run back home a few times before—today just marked the one time he didn't do so while in tears, or covered in colorful, albeit well hidden bruises or scrapped and grazed from various small cuts and wounds or dripping from whatever foul matter his tormentors decided to decorate him in.

 

He was in the usual contemplative, sad frame of mind true, but at least he wasn't wearing any physical reminder of his misery. It certainly made the journey twice as easy—true, he has learned how to navigate even when half-blinded by pain but he much preferred introspection clouding his mind than numbing pain.

 

The way home at times could feel endless, it could be so long, so cold and so quiet…but today marked the first time he wasn't in pain while taking note of the conditions he always faced while trudging on back. He has that much to be thankful for and make for this rare occurrence one to remember. Especially since today also marked the one time he wasn't racing to reach the house but rather whiling away the minutes until he could arrive at a more considerate time.

 

He made himself take as many side routes as he could though, pacing his tread so as not to appear harried or worse— _guilty_ —which he was in spite of his own decision to ditch school. Still, he couldn't afford to make one of the adults roaming around to take notice of him and ask what he was doing out so early in the day. Not that he was conspicuous in any shape or form. More often than not, he got overlooked and today, more than ever, he was grateful for that oft regrettable fact.

 

He took his time to breathe and take in the views afforded to him by his hastily conceived and obviously desperate attempt at forgetting. He found it ironic that the only time he could relax whilst walking in his own town would be the few and far between instances when he is certain he wouldn't encounter anyone that knows him or of him. Quite ironic really, that he feared more the presence of people he knew than the crapshoot that might result in encountering nameless strangers on deserted alleyways or busy crowded streets.

 

He stayed away from the business district and certainly made no move towards the arcade where distractions and the easier, certainly more conventional means to while away the hours were plentiful. He was trying to forget the day's less than stellar result—however he wasn't quite degenerate enough or thoughtless enough to reward himself for skipping out of class. He knows that he would be reprimanded by both the school and maybe his mother but for the moment, the peace and solitude he has bought for himself was all that he could think of.

 

He would worry about the other things—all the other things—when the time comes. For now he bought himself a few precious minutes of freedom and respite. The reprieve was heady and he loathed the idea of to giving it up so soon. For now, he would try his hardest to gather the remains of his tattered spirit and composure into some semblance of being. He doesn't want to go home with any visible sign of strain or anger inside him. It wouldn't do to cause his mother any worry or sadness. He will not burden her with further proof of his inadequacies and he certainly has no wish to bring the bitten taint of his own cursed school-time menace to the one place that has remained unsullied in his life.

 

He was already a disappointment with his dismal showing at school and while his mother never begrudged him that—he felt all too keenly the fact that he was living up to the demeaning nickname he had been forced to bear since middle school.

 

_Home's the only place I could find peace—the only place where I can be safe. I will not blemish it with all the drama that school already has. Even someone like me deserves a place to be safe and be myself._

The house loomed just a few feet away and like always the familiar sight eased the cold, hollow ache gnawing at him since he slipped out of school. Wincing reflexively at the possible sound it was prone to make, he pushed the gate open and sighed when it barely gave out a faint squeak. Reaching into one of his many pockets, he took out his house key and fitted it into the lock. He knew his mother was usually out during this time of day and cowardly as that might be he was thankful he didn't have to explain his unexpectedly early presence just yet. Toeing off his shoes, he quickly made it up the stairs and into the relative coolness and solitude of his room.

 

Once inside he allowed his bag to slide off his shoulders and drop unheeded to the floor where it promptly caused him to trip when he took a single step towards his closet. Chagrined and resigned to his life's many ironies, he stripped away of his sweat-soaked uniform before proceeding to the bath where he used a cool wet towel to wipe away them stench and trace of sweat that his thin body bore and changed into a pair of sweatpants and shirt. The feel of warm, clean clothing eased even more the tainted feeling that clung to him, easing away the ever-present trace of tears and despair that seemed determined to cleave to his body.

 

Sighing, he made his way to his bed and gratefully stretched out, his eyes closing reflexively as his body finally relaxed since awakening that morning. His single-minded attempt to gain rest so consumed his conscious mind that it failed to recognize the sharp frisson of awareness that shot through his senses.

 

_Not alone…the house…mom…_

His body slid gratefully into exhausted, dreamless slumber, barely making a fuss at all when his muddled consciousness belatedly acknowledged what his senses have been trying to tell him—that the house didn't exactly feel empty at all.

 

_Not alone…someone's here…someone different…someone not like anyone else…_

He was certainly in no frame of mind to make himself move or even care as his worn-out body simply shut down and plunged him into deep sleep, his lips sluggishly forming words he was certainly no longer aware of saying.

 

**"** **No mom…that man…no…not as he appears…"**

And under the most normal circumstance not one single soul would've been able to hear.

However that fact, sadly, does not apply in this particular circumstance.

 

**_REBORN_ **

****

He took another contemplative sip of the surprisingly good brew and wondered what the woman sharing the kitchen space with him would've said had she heard those sleepily murmured words. He doubts it would have made much sense to her, but the notion didmake him a bit curious and brought a small smirk to his lips.

 

_An interesting quirk…so the Vongola blood actually runs_ **true** _in this one…wonder if that canny old man knew…_

The entire notion that the boy would be a less than ideal nor suitable candidate was an aberration from his usual response to given stimuli but he was well aware that he was operating beyond the normal parameters he has grown used to. In truth, nothing about his current assignment proved to be according to his personal or professional protocol.

 

Certainly not the way he was given near carte blanche when it came to deciding on _how_ to go about his training, nor to the location in which he was supposed to do the job. But he knows how to roll when things come up smelling less than roses and more of a FUBAR kind of thing.

 

Normally his clients are petulant, reticent blue-blooded heirs who for reasons personal and idiotic refused to gracefully assume their place in the natural order of the Underworld. Their families have the pedigree, the manpower, the resource and the financial means to secure his limited, selective and very exacting process.

 

Normally, when confronted with a less than ideal locale, he would've simply dragged the oblivious heir-apparent back to Italy and train him there so that he could acclimate quicker and far more efficiently than he would've otherwise given the foreign and clearly untested location. He would've found suitable experts to assist whenever the need would arise and he would've demanded a retainer large enough to pay the national debt of a small nation.

 

However, with the unrest brewing within the edges of the Vongola stronghold itself—he deemed the relative anonymity of a Japanese suburb as a far better and defendable position. A location unknown and unfamiliar to him would be impossible for anyone else.

 

After all the location can only remain unknown if he was less than vigilant and unfamiliar if he allowed himself to be lazy and let's admit it—that is just not happening anytime soon. He already made contingencies regarding supply lines and personnel. Anything else he might need within the realm of his imagination was not without any means of being attained. That’s what carte blanche means when HE was the one setting down the rules of his contract.

 

And more than anything else, normally he wouldn't be spending any significant amount of time wondering if he made a rookie mistake alienating a key component of his assignment within the first hour of starting. He doesn’t need to have the one ally he had to convince to be overtly antagonistic to him and his ways. That way spell disaster and a waste time and resources he would rather not have to go through.

 

He noticed that Decimo's mother now appeared much calmer than she had been when he first sprung his unfortunate choice of words but tears still rimmed her eyes every so often and her cheeks remained pale. On hindsight, perhaps he could’ve employed a more subtle and far gentler means of breaking the news of her son’s sudden change of status.

 

Still she seemed to have shored up her feelings and regained a commendable degree of her composure. She began attending to her guests as she was wont to do on occasion, automatically refilling his cup, and quietly inquiring if he had need for more substantial repast as if she hadn't spent just moments ago cursing his very existence. When he murmured his refusal, he carefully placed his cup down without being asked, pinning her with his gaze and like the astute woman that she clearly was, she took the seat in front of him without another word and simply waited for him to speak.

 

_Time to give her something to distract her from her dark and decidedly morose mindset. Perhaps I should inform her that we are no longer alone._

"Your son is home."

 

The ruse proved to be surprisingly effective. The woman looked up swiftly towards the door. She jumped to her feet and tried valiantly to smooth down her hair and wipe the faint traces of tears still left on her cheeks. She moved towards the sink and immediately washed the flushed warmth in her face, effectively erasing the stain of anguish that marked her visage. Her frantic attempt to fix herself slowed down suddenly as her mind contemplated ideas as to why her child would be home. His intuition warned him that the worry would bring about another bout of tears and he nearly cringed. He didn't mind the tears but he would rather not be subjected to constant displays of it either.

 

"Tsu-kun's home? But school is—"a quick turn of her head to consult the clock made her mutter worriedly, "He shouldn't be here at all. Classes aren't out yet. I wonder if something happened today…"

 

He cast a brief glanced at the direction of the energy he sensed and assessed the nature of the body that entered the house. It didn't escape his attention that the boy managed to do that without disturbing him. If his bag hadn't thumped against the floor and if the bed's springs hadn't squeaked when he lay down, he might've missed him for a few more minutes.

 

_Sloppy on his part, really, but promising for his would-be student. Most promising. It wasn't every day that an untrained, untested boy could bypass his considerable senses._

"Calm yourself. No need to get into a tizzy. He is not sick nor is he wounded."

 

"Oh…he isn't? Tt-that's—that's good…"

 

He glanced at the woman who has finally gathered her composure and appeared back in control and decided that further information about his future student wouldn't hurt. The dossier he carried with him certainly never revealed that the mother was as not as unaware as the child regarding their current situation. It certainly didn't contain anything about the woman having a very explosive, albeit, justifiable temper. All that her idiotic husband was able to state about his better half was that she was perfection itself. Clearly the man didn't know his wife has grown a backbone in his absence or that his broken promise was the proverbial straw that broke his wife's long-suffering patience. Perhaps it had already been inside her and was just never seen by her perpetually missing spouse. It was a fact he would soon remedy but first things first, he needed information from someone with a much closer perspective towards his newest charge.

 

"But I am curious as to why you're not unduly surprised that he is here and not where he is expected to be. I take it this isn't the first time he has done such a thing?"

 

A sad, melancholic look flashed on her face and she shook her head. Her lips pursed in a weary half smile as her red-rimmed eyes lost itself in memories.

 

"No, sadly this isn't the first time he ran home after something bad happened in school. I thought, at least now that he's in middle school it wouldn't happen anymore, but clearly—I was mistaken. Oh my poor, little tuna-fish…"

 

"It would be unseemly for a future leader to have such a nature. No one would respect a leader who runs home whenever adversity gets the better of him. I would see to it that this would be the last time."

 

"Mr. Reborn..." she began hesitantly but the sound of the cup settling against the saucer with a bright clink made her pause and look up. He held her gaze for a few minutes.

 

"Call me Reborn. _No Mr_. Just Reborn will be fine.”

 

She stared at him for a few more moments before nodding. Her eyes once again dropped to her lap and fiddled with the apron strings with her hands. Her words when it came, was soft and halting. "Well then, Reborn…what happens now? What am I supposed to do?"

 

"Be there for him. Like you've always been. Like you always will. Now, more than ever Decimo would need your steadfast nature and the comforting familiarity of home. He will need your strength and the warmth of his home to ground him for the upheavals that would inevitably come. His world will become fraught with dangers and challenges, that much I can tell you now. He has been safe and hidden for far too long—once his name and presence has been confirmed to be true, those who wish to usurp his position would hold back no longer. He needs someone who will remain constant in his life and one place where he will always feel welcome and safe."

 

"Is there no other way to avoid this path?" There was resignation in her tone but her eyes pleaded with him one more time to deny the truth that hung uncomfortably between them. Reborn has never regretted more the chances he was given for being a harbinger of change more than he did at that moment.

 

"I'm afraid not. Not for your son. Not even for this famiglia. They've used up all their trumps, all their ace in the holes and all their prayers. Tsunayoshi is all that remains to them. Despite your fears and disbelief, the truth is, your son is all that stands between oblivion and salvation for the many men in the Vongola Famiglia. Without him—without your son, without Sawada Tsunayoshi, there would come a time when the Vongola Famiglia and all that belonged under her helm would cease to exist. That truth, much like his ascension, is inevitable."

 

With a final brush of her hands against the nubby feel of her apron, Sawada Nana stood and walked away from the table and braced her hands against the counter, staring at the yard outside with unseeing eyes as if she hoped to find salvation or solution standing somewhere out there.

 

"I still don't understand how a child could accomplish all that you're saying. I can't see how _my_ _child_ could mean so much to your world. He wasn’t trained for it—he wasn’t born into your world. He's just a tiny pebble in the sea that is your world."

 

"We do not always knowingly assign value to those that make ripples in the sea of our lives.

Whether it is the kind that threatens us or repels us, entice us or pull us in—we can decide only once the right time comes. All one can do is prepare. Your son is more than just a mere pebble—he is the pebble that's going to disturb the long stagnated waters of the Underworld."

 

 

He jumped from his seat and made a move towards the living room but Sawada Nana turned and he waited for her to speak. He knew very well this question would come and he was prepared for the outburst it would cause.

 

“Reborn—what are you—really? Are you just a tutor for Tsuna? Is that what you are?”

 

“That is the primary role I will play in his life. What I am before I was assigned to him and what I will be in the end—well, that’s something we will have to come to terms, he and I. But no, I am not just a tutor if that’s what you’re asking.”

 

“You will protect him—wont you?”

 

"With all that I am. With my life, if need be.”

 

If his answer surprised him, he would never know. Sawada Nana, for all her expressiveness and open reactions could, at times, sink into such stillness that even he had a hard time fathoming her depths.  And so, he simply gave her a nod towards the second floor.

 

“Now go and be a mother to your son Sawada Nana. He will need you more than before. Give him the very best memories of home and childhood he can steal away from time. It would have to last him for a very long while."

 

This time he gave Sawada Nana a firm nod and exited from her kitchen. He thought it best to give both mother and child time to settle themselves before he made himself known to his main client. There will be time enough after that. He knows he will have his student all to himself in the days to come. And Decimo's mother certainly needs to get into the practice of keeping her serenity around her son even as she hands him over to the hands of a trained killer.

 

_NANA_

_She had to make the act good. She must never show him her turmoil. She must be strong. If at no other time than now—she would be strong enough for the both of them._

 

 

Her little tuna-fish has been trying to be strong for her for so long—keeping his smiles radiant and carefree for her for years despite the turmoil he had been forced to live under. The knowledge that her son has been suffering for years without her knowing shot a sharp stabbing pain into her heart but she clamped her lips closed to stifle the cry that wanted to escape. She could cry later—she would break down and weep and moan _later_ —she already shed enough tears not an hour ago, she could certainly hold off her despair for a few more hours.

_She could do this_. More so, she _would_ do it.

 

It was a small price to pay, really. If it meant her little tuna fish would finally get to grow, there really isn't anything else for her to do. For the chance to finally unlock all of her beloved tiny tuna-fish's potential she could learn to endure anything. She has already learned to live day by day without her beloved husband's warmth and security—she could learn to temper the core of herself to be strong enough to be her child's shield for as long as he would need it.

 

She would steel herself from worry and loss if it would ensure that her son would finally get to live the kind of life he was meant to. For that she _would_ endure _anything_.

 

With a final swipe of her palms across her cheek and under her lids to check for any telltale sign of tears, she reached for the knob and gave it a gentle twist. Pushing the doors slowly, she took stock of her slumbering son and felt her lips trembling as she made herself look stern and speak loudly:

"Tsu-kun! Is that you? I just got a call from school! You went home in the middle of class again! Did something happen today?"

 

"Mom! You can't just barge into my room like that!"

 

Her eyes trailed over his disheveled form and couldn't help the small smile that bloomed on her lips. Her voice when she spoke returned to its usual warm tones.

 

"Are you in trouble again Tsu-kun?"

 

This time she watched keenly her son's eyes and it nearly brought her to her knees when she saw his brown eyes—usually so clear and pure and true—cloud with something all too frail and human and hurting for her to miss. She wondered anew how she could’ve lived for so long with her own son and been blind to all his pain when she can now see how patently obvious it was.

 

"No, Mom."

"Will you tell me if you were?"

"Mom… _please_ …"

 

Haltingly she tried to muster her voice and her composure to remain steady but even to her she could detect the faint tremble in it when she spoke.

 

"Oh I know that I'm being nosy...Tsu-kun. Mama is very sorry dear. But Mama is only worried about you, you know that right? I mean, you're all grown up and all. What are you going to do in the future?"

 

_"The future_ -!"

 

" _Tsu-kun ta ra…!_ What is Mama going to do with you? I mean I'm not expecting you to go to a top-notch university or college but- what do you want to do with yourself. You have to start thinking about these things you know…"

 

**_TSUNAYOSHI POV_ **

The usual banter and subtle reproach in his mother’s voice didn't bother him. _But that final question for some reason did._ It wasn't as if he didn't think about the future. It's just that with such a reputation and a very real possibility that he would be staying put in the same place for the foreseeable future-it was safe to surmise that he wouldn't actually amount to much no matter what he did.

 

He couldn't count on the possibility that people would soon forget the hateful nickname. People's cruelty lingered far longer in the mind than any act of kindness. That much he knows first-hand. He couldn't honestly answer his mother without causing her distress and that's something he would never consciously do. He would rather get beaten every single day and bear that demeaning nickname rather than add to the sorrow that occasionally darkens his mother's eyes.

 

So engrossed was he in the thoughts inside his head that he barely caught the words that came from her lips next.

 

"…that's why I decided to call him and he's-!"

 

"Call who? Mom, what are you talking about?"

 

"Well, you see there was this funny ad I found in the mailbox this morning. It's about a home

tutor and they said that as long as there's food and lodging in the offing then they would come here and teach you how to become a great leader in the future. Isn't that nice dear? And so I gave them a call and—"

 

_"MOOOOOOM!"_

It was all he could do really to resist the urge to face-palm in front of his mother. She would only ask him about the reason if he did. Even he, clueless and dense as he was, could tell the ad was a scam. _His cheerfully naïve and trusting mother didn't even have a clue! How was he supposed to explain to her that no sane tutor would agree to such measly means of compensation? That what she read was so obviously a scam no one with half a mind would believe it?_

"But Tsu-kun. The tutor is already here."

 

"What?!"

 

" _Ciaossu."_

 

The sight that greeted him was so bizarre—so out of the normal expectation that all he could do was gape and sputter at the strange figure standing so insolently in front of him. Incredulous, he pointed at the figure standing so imperiously at his bedroom's threshold and turned wide eyes at his mother shouting, "What the— _Mom_! You got an infant to be my tutor?! That doesn't even make—!"

 

Whatever else he would have said that night was lost in the blinding pain that suddenly bloomed inside of him and to his utter shock, he found himself lying face down on the floor of his room, his arms pinioned behind him effortlessly and his eyes staring right smack at the shiny toes on a pair of genuine Italian leather shoes.

 

"Who are you calling an infant _Dame_ Tsuna? My name is Reborn. And I will be your tutor."

 

"A baby tutor?" he stammered. "Even I can't be that pathetic!" he whined as he tried to get up only to have his face smashed into the carpet when the baby decided to drop kick him on the head. "Oww! Hey!"

 

"Who says I'm just a tutor? I am a hitman. Now get off your ass _kid._ Time's a-wasted. It's time for you to get started and for me to show you what someone like me can do."

 

* * *

 

  ** _Title Translation: TRATTARE CON IL DIAVOLO = "DEALING WITH THE DEVIL"_**

 

 


	11. Disegnando Le Linea Della Battaglia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> I LIVEEEEEEEE! Hehehehe. Apparently I haven't died yet and I am back baby. Well, it took some time but I finally found a handle on things and I have started writing for this piece once more. I know that there will be times when I would rely on the canon but rest assured, there will be a marked difference in the actual treatment of the story. Scouts honor. ^-^  
> Well, here we go. Please forgive me it's a teeny short but here the meeting of the two. Not as in depth yet but like any old custom—this is but the first step. An introduction after all must set the proper tone.  
> 2014 Update: Can't believe I haven't written a single new thing for this work in a year. What the hell happened? Well, I suppose real life can be such a bitter gnome. RL has this insane habit of being annoyingly demanding and draining that all I am left with is mental block. The good thing about re-reading 'Ties…' is that it afforded me time to fix this work and gain back perspective. Try and re-reading the other parts. I made some adjustments.  
> 2015 UPDATE: DO you know—it’s really strange re-reading something you’ve written and have absolutely no idea how you came to do it. Weird….and if you had read this before, give it another go. I think I might have given our favorite tutor a far ‘saltier’ language than before. No, not quite the level of our favorite swear-happy baby but close.  
> 2017: Really weird reading this. I keep losing track of where I was in the thread of the storyline. No wonder I could never finish this damn thing.

_**Chapter Eleven:**_  
**DISEGNANDO LE LINEA DELLA BATTAGLIA**

  
**_"Rules and responsibilities: these are the ties that bind us._ **  
**_We do what we do, because of who we are._ **  
**_If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves._ **  
**_I will do what I have to do. And I will do what I must."_ **  
**_―_ ** _Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Book of Dreams_

* * *

  
**REBORN**

**REBORN**

**_You are praying for a child to save and cleanse the sins accumulated by four hundred years of bloodshed and betrayal?_ **

The argument he had hurled at his former friend and current employer echoed mockingly in the back of his mind as his body moved on autopilot, the words taunting him because it revealed more than his irritation at Timoteo's naiveté. It revealed the weakness and vulnerability in someone he never would've pegged as having such. It also made him question the decisions the man has taken over the last decade if this was the result his ruling has been forcing him to make.

 

It irked him greatly to be proven wrong during the one instance he would've been petty enough to crow and proclaim to the world at large that fate had finally granted him a chance to show off what he could do given the proper medium—given a worthy subject to mold and fashion in the manner of his choosing. But his chance is being jeopardized by a candidate that is less than just unworthy—his long-awaited protégé-to-be is _damaged_.

_Damn you Timoteo. Damn your tainted, foolish whimsical lying soul to the depths of Tartarus. How could you do this to me? Why in the hell did you lie to me, you conniving old goat! You made me believe…you made me dare to_ hope _…made me_ trust _in your words and now I'm drowning in disappointment so acute I can cut it with a stupid silver spoon._

 

He found his gaze falling on the pathetic excuse for a human being trailing behind him like a drunken, possessed zombie and resisted mightily the urge to simply end the entire charade with a well-placed bullet on that stupid, aggravatingly clear forehead. It would've been so easy to end the existence of this miserable, pathetic excuse of mobile protein and claim that it was a training accident than prolong his annoyance and ire especially while the bitter cauldron of disillusionment churned and bubbled inside of him.

_I never should've traded the Cavallone whelp for this wretched lump of flesh and bone. There is nothing here you old fool…_ _nothing_ _to merit the hope you have nursed for so long… nothing to merit the act of betraying the man who was the closest thing to a brother you've ever had. You blind fool…how can you deceive yourself into thinking that you have found the pearl of prize in the heart of this whimpering piece of human mush? This boy couldn't even be made worthy of being used as cannon fodder if you forced me to! Are you deliberately sabotaging me or is mocking my efforts your end-game Old Man?_

 

He has been under the Sawada household for less than 48 hours and already he could feel the familiar itch to hunt something vile and useless and turn it into a thing that could only be identified if someone would have the patience enough to use a sponge to mop up the remains and send it off to a lab that identifies DNA. He had half a mind to fly half-way around the world and lose himself to a few hours of harmless genocide—maybe there was a gang somewhere or a corrupt general who could stand to lose a few hundred men or two to his rage. Somewhere— _anywhere_ was better than where he is at the moment.

 

He wanted to run, to vent his anger, he wanted to scream. Barring that he wanted to disappear for days on end and wash away the cloying stench of mediocrity that clung to his skin like a bad smell. The place was too conspicuous, too easily breached, too mundane, _too bloody fucking normal_ for someone like him. The commonness annoyed him as much as the sight that currently occupied much of his vision since coming to this suburban hell in order to pay back a decade old debt.

 

He took the would-be Vongola heir for a short stroll around the town and found to his utter disgust and contempt that the boy was weaker than a newly born pup. _Worse,_ since you can actually afford to give a pup some slack since it hasn't fully developed and it didn't have the benefit of knowing what the fuck it's supposed to be doing.

 

The boy he dragged around with him was nearly fucking fifteen and he was still utterly useless. A decade and a half of being alive and he was still barely functioning at capacity never mind full potential. It was annoying him just thinking about that fucking fact. After a measly ten kilometer trot around the quiet suburb where the Sawada's lived, the pathetic runt was lying prostrate on the floor of his bedroom much like he had been the night before. Only this time around the room actually echoes with the hoarse broken gasps of breath coming from pale parted quivering lips and a chest that seemed two breaths away from actually exploding.

_Pathetic isn't even a word enough to describe what I see. I would need a bloody thesaurus just to find the most appropriate word to describe this level of sheer patheticness. Wait, is that even a word? Fucking gods of all hell—the brat's actually wheezing!_

 Irritated with even his own inner musings, he turned to check once more on his unfortunate ward. To his utter consternation, he only realized that he was still holding on to the boy, having had to drag the brat himself because the lump that the boy called his body could and would go no further after they've reached the 10-kilometer mark. Never mind the incongruous and frankly humiliating fact that he had to drag the boy that's nearly four times his size up a flight of fucking narrow stairs all while the damned boy gasped and groaned every damned inch of the way.

 He cast another disparaging look at the quivering childish flesh that barely struggled in his grasp and wished the kid would stop staring at the toes of his patent leather shoes and look at him. However, it's been nearly a full five minutes already and he could still see the boy trembling uncontrollably and he was not in the mood to be sympathetic. Not that he had very much to spare—that wasn't the point. The point was that he had a very limited supply and the damned brat was burning through his entire stash in less than a fucking day of being introduced to one another. He didn't have much in store to spare anyways on a good day and today most certainly wasn't a good one by any measure of comparison.

_How in the name of all the fucked up gods could this child be so weak? All I did was wake him up, drag him from his room and make him run ten kilometers at an ungodly reasonable hour of four a.m. for Hades' sake. What's wrong with that? Followed by eight repetitions of basic exercises and another ten minute full-on sprint—a warm up really, that's all it was! How can that be so difficult and pathetic and useless? And he hasn't even started on the training menu he had planned to implement as soon as he could have his medical exam worked out! What the hell was he supposed to do with such a weakling?_

He pulled the small sheet of paper that contained the list of tasks he determined the young Vongola-Decimo-to-be should master before the end of the month from his inner pocket and wondered if he should add some more. The list included a modified exercise regimen—a slightly augmented one from the usual training the Italian Special Force adopted—10 kilometers of jogging every day to be accomplished in less than 2 hours, 100 x 100 repetitions of squats, push up, high kicks and pull ups. Cardio, muscular resistance and weight training all in one—light training, really just the basic and here the boy is already reduced to so much dead meat at his feet with the warm up.

_How can he even start properly training the boy when just the warm up's apparently enough to render his apprentice into a coma?_

_What the hell was wrong with the boy?_ he mused in agitation. _It wasn't like he was doing the required run while carrying a full army pack or being ran down by a pack of rabid hyenas. He has had no room to complain yet! I haven't broken out the rabid dogs yet for god's sake! He should complain when I start shooting whilst trained police dogs chased him—or when I find enough trained wolves to do the job effectively!_

 He glanced at the fragile wrist he still held within the cage of his fingers and took a moment to wonder at the delicacy of the limb. He didn't want to admit that he was vaguely intrigued at how a child like this didn't even flinch from his touch whereas he'd witnessed many a grown men try every absurd measure short of jumping off a cliff to avoid even the faintest brush of his clothes against any part of their anatomy.

  _Must be rendered dumber than usual because of the shock._ Merde. _I've seen monkeys that looked brighter than this brat and I am damned sure if I trained them they would do a commendable job. This whelp is going to be the death of my reputation if I couldn't even make him jog in the morning without looking like some deranged deformed zombie._

 It seemed to him that there was nothing of merit in his would-be charge—certainly only a long list of complaints that had it been any other client— _anyone else at all_ —it would've been enough of a deal breaker for him. . It's a good thing he already had practical experience with useless heirs-to-be. Otherwise, he might've thought of other things to do in frustration—the kind of things that wouldn't just leave scars—or even traceable remains. He would've walked out of the deal no matter the amount of money on the table. Sure his skills didn't go for peanuts but he wouldn't even think of considering training such a poor candidate for anything short of the monetary equivalent of the GDP of a small country.

 The only thing commendable about him was that he was so unremarkable he might do a good job when training for infiltration since no one would remember what he looked like. The downside, however, is that the boy was so clumsy and uncoordinated he would get himself killed before he could even begin his training. His newest apprentice possessed a face and form too ungainly for words and too pathetic for any insult he could think of.

  _On second thought, even his impressive repertoire of insults would feel insulted if he dared to use them on the boy._

The boy was short in stature –short limbed, with absolutely no muscle tone whatsoever and was annoyingly pale—promising that he would grow up along less than imposing lines and hardly along any respectable height. In short, pun intended, the next Vongola Don would be a pathetic shrimp of a man.

  _On a positive note, it would be a sheer delight to the men guarding him since he would be a smaller target and therefore harder to assassinate. Surround the boy with guards that cleared six feet or more and he would be effectively boxed in and would be a sniper's nightmare. Getting a headshot would be near-impossible since all anyone would ever see would be the bodyguard's shoulders and the occasional tuff of messy brown hair._

 He had a depressingly regular-looking, completely unremarkable face, marked by baby fat and inexperience. His softly carved cheeks, tip-tilted nose and lithe physique leaned towards more feminine lines than the expected angular, aristocratic features that characterized his European forebears. Reborn couldn't help but grimace at the idea of what the other testosterone-driven, machismo-laden men of the Underworld would say about having a leader who was not only young but would look prettier than their own daughters and wives leading and negotiating with them. He could easily imagine the innuendoes and insults that would end up flying all over the place.

  _Great, that's just fucking peachy—the next head of one of the oldest, wealthiest and most blood-riddled Famiglia in the history of the Underworld would be a sissy, pallid, effeminate-looking Easterner with a messy head of nondescript, mud-brown eyes and brackish brown hair that gets flustered with the barest of things and then stutters so much no one could make out a word of what he says edgewise. He could almost hear the other Dons calling him 'Signorina' already and lining up dates instead of mergers._

His voice when he did speak was weak and trembling, unsure not just of everyone else's—but most definitively of his own right to speak. There was no command in it, no weight or depth or even the faintest sense of drive or conviction. There was a certain lack of force in his words and hesitancy in even opening his mouth. His voice is faint and the words he chooses to use are often times vague and when he does speak—it's actually more accurate to describe the noises he make as whimpers and murmurs and whispers that no one could even decipher.

  _No one would submit to a man who cannot muster enough conviction and determination to even fool himself—let alone anyone else. Who would follow the commands of one who couldn't even shoo away a simple Chihuahua for Pete's sake? Even the lowliest grunt would dare to issue a challenge if they didn't know who he was. How would he manage to sit through a merger or even a simple meeting when he refused to look anyone in the eye?_

Poor posture and a complete lack of any visible kind of coordination, evident from the way he just tumbled into a heap on the floor made for an even poorer first impression. He carried himself like he wanted to sink through the first available nook or crevice and that’s if anyone paid attention. No charisma or appeal existed in him or about him and certainly there was no aura of power around him—none that would compel even the lowliest of grunts to give a vow of fealty. There was nothing unusual about the boy save for the undeniable stench of a prey that fairly oozed off of him just waiting idly by for any lazy predator to come and take advantage.

All in all, his newest student makes for one pretty pathetic picture—nothing to recommend him at all, no saving grace except that he’s not a despotic sociopath and god knows the Famiglia already has a surplus of those. Nothing at all—well except for those disturbing eyes of his. In that brief exchange last night he had glimpsed enough to make him take some notice of it.

**Eyes.** Those were all he had—but hell, if the pair didn’t make Reborn sit up and pay some kind of attention. Those colored orbs were all that called and actually held Reborn's formidable attention since his disappointing assessment of his newest trainee/victim.

The would-be Vongola Decimo owned a most unusual pair of eyes this side of the planet. Eyes that seemed so oddly out of place in that mass of underdeveloped, short-limbed, weakened flesh. _He had the wizened eyes of someone who has seen too much, knew too much and witnessed something traumatic and tragic for too long and learned too well the depths and depravity that people could and did resort to._ Knew it, learned it, and worse of all remembered it all—and yet, for all that those strangely intense orbs contained, they did not gleam with hatred or bitterness or darkness. No, those unusual eyes contained the oddest combination of remembered pain and serenity.

_Timoteo’s sanctified paschal lamb had the eyes of someone that belonged heaven or someone who has walked through hell. Eyes like those could spell nothing but trouble for me, I can see that much. I've only seen eyes like those ONCE and it was enough to make even someone like me wary. No one mortal or normal should have eyes like those. Certainly not an untried, fifteen year-old suburban-raised weak little innocent dupe._

He resisted—mightily—the urge to kick the boy and his deranged benefactor with him to the outer reaches of Mongolia and back. A bullet through the head would be a far more merciful approach and certainly nothing he would do to the boy would do him any better. At least death would be quick and slightly merciful end to the situation and not a long drawn out, painful process like the torture training him guarantees to be.

Allowing himself a second to vent, he released his grip on the frail wrists he held and allowed the thin appendage to fall heedlessly against a heaving chest. Sinking into what was messy, unmade bed the boy vacated merely two hours ago, he waited for the boy to scramble to his knees and continue where they left off two nights before.

He had honestly expected the boy to bolt after his cavalier introduction of sorts, at the very least run towards his mother screaming his denials and protestations like the wimp that he obviously was. He expected the boy to swear or cry or do something. He certainly didn’t expect the boy to simply stare at him in silent horror before turning his gaze away and refusing to speak another word. Even now, he couldn’t quite figure out why the boy continued to lie still on the floor, uncaring for his undignified pose or the picture he made as he desperately tried to get his breath back.

As he settled more comfortably for what promises to be an inevitable test of his patience, he recalled the argument he presented his old friend for refusing his current charge and this time he held its cold logic against the very picture of the quivering excuse of a young man lying prone at his feet.

* * *

  
**A child uncorrupted by the evils of the world, untainted by the bitter pill of pain…untested and unaware of the darkness, depravity and dangers that lurk behind even the most human of masks…**

  
Reborn couldn’t help but note that despite the boy’s lack of skills, there was disturbing stillness to the boy. He didn’t fidget much when there wasn’t a lot of people around—more specifically when his mother was not around to fuss and coddle him. Trapped and alone with someone of obvious superior strength and position—the boy hardly made any discernible sound let alone move.

_Like a wild animal who had learned to adapt and play dead._

The idea suddenly popped unbidden into his head and he found a curious distaste for the words no matter how truly they applied to the situation. The child didn't fight his grip when he held the boy’s wrist not just because of exhaustion it would seem but because he didn't know what Reborn would do if he did.

The boy didn't fight because somehow he knew and understood—and that Reborn, did too—that sometimes struggling only brought along more pain. His demeanor was that of one already cowed, beaten but oddly not broken— _at least not yet_. But that distinction made all the difference in the world as far as Reborn was concerned. The child is aware of pain and that people could and did cause others around them to feel it. He knows— _intimately_ —how pain could immobilize, could steal not just strength but will itself. _Here was a child that knew of pain and knew it personally—constantly, effectively._

* * *

 

**A child that has never known hunger or fear, or deprivation or pain. A child who has never been beaten down by those around him, by life and by the choices he has made.**

  
The frail wrist he held wasn’t bruised—he has far too much control to do that accidentally, but his eyes caught the fading marks that lined up the thin arms that lay bared from their initial scuffle. The boy was clearly used to being roughened up and taking it like a damned pro.

The reflex to flinch was there and was barely being repressed as if he already experienced how cruel people can be when they sense fear in others. There was a sense of control within the boy—braced as he was for something rougher and infinitely more excruciating than the reality of an unplanned marathon and exercise regimen. It spoke a language of pain and wariness that has been learned and relearned from constant exposure. It spoke of behavior acquired through a thorough and undeniably painful process of trial and error.

And of course, it didn't escape his attention that the boy was watching his every move, tracking him from beneath the shadow of his bangs and tensing every time he would make any move, especially if it was in the direction of the door that lead to the rest of the house where his mother worked innocent and unknowing. The coiled tension in the exhausted body would immediately trigger every single time his body would angle towards the door as if the boy was preparing to spring at him if he should leave the room to go and seek the boy's mother. It spoke of a protective instinct that went beyond simple self-preservation. The boy had none of to speak of when it comes to himself—that’s pretty apparent—but he had a mile-wide streak of it when there was someone else on the line. It was an act of determined and calculated cunning he never would’ve attributed to someone so fragile looking as this young boy.

_And concealing the fact, too, if his mother's reaction to any perceived threat was any indication. She has no idea what her child was capable of and what he is able to endure. Clearly there is something after all, in this little whelp. More than the clumsy wimpy role he seemed determined to uphold. The only question left is what_.

"I guess he wasn't kidding when he said I had my work cut out for me."

His hands reached up towards his fedora and he was piqued when he noted that the boy's eyes were still following his every move. Those tell-tale eyes again. He gave the boy a small smirk and found amusement at the flash of alarm that went through the young man. His eyes flickered nervously towards the door before swinging back towards Reborn. Pale, thin lips quivered in a shaky draw of breath, throat swallowing nervously before a soft trembling murmur slipped past.

"W-what are you talking about? W-who are you anyways? And why did you have to drag me all over town this morning?"

"I do hope you're not that slow on a daily basis or this will be absolutely fun for me and I was told by many a reliable source that I tend to savor my enjoyments far too much."

He continued to sit imperiously on the rumpled bed and watched as the young man slowly began to lift himself off the floor. The boy made many attempts—laughable in their clumsiness—until he finally managed the feat. The thin, young arms trembled visibly as do the wobbly legs that could do nothing further except fold messily in an untidy but unmistakable seiza. The oddly formal seating choice intrigued him especially in the light of the boy’s clear fatigue. The young man drew a deep breath and then another, trying to steady his breathing before attempting speech once more.

"I-I- d-don't think I-i-i understand. I-i-f you're the t-t-tutor-I don't need one,o-o-okay? S-s-sorry for the t-t-trouble but—I-i- d-don't want a t-tutor."

He resisted the urge to smack the young boy on the back of his stubborn head to curb the annoying stutter. He would work on that first of all. _No decent leader could command with a stutter. It simply isn't dignified. And it is certainly NOT becoming of a man that would be Head of a powerful, centuries-old Famiglia._

He pinned the clearly exhausted young man and gave him another of his signature smirk. It didn't surprise him when the boy flinched instead. No one who knows him would find the act reassuring. It pleased him to know that the young whelp knew instinctively that his smirks are nothing more than sublimated threats. It boded well for the brat’s sense of self-preservation.

"Who says you have a say about what you want? A boss must always take into consideration what's the best for everyone and not just himself. No one follows a self-centered, selfish boss for long. Such actuations open you up for coups and betrayals and hostile, often messy take-overs."

Those unusual lambent eyes blinked. Reborn watched as they blinked again. When they did the third time he gave in to his impulse and lightly flicked the young man's forehead with his fingers. The boy promptly barreled into a roll twice before sprawling in an undignified heap on the floor.

"Stop looking like a damn deer caught in the headlights. It's unbecoming of a boss to look so irritatingly stupid."

"A boss-?!"

The voice squeaked and Reborn couldn't help but wince at the annoying decibel the noise reached. He made a mental note to device a lesson on how NOT to squeak like an outraged mouse right after the stuttering lesson. _Perhaps something involving dynamites would be the best way to go_.

"Yes. Don't make me repeat myself. I dislike intensely people who mimic parrots."

"A boss of what?"

"A Mafia Famiglia what else."

"A boss for a mafia famiglia?"

"Yes. You are the next in line to inherit one of the oldest names in the Mafia world and it is my task to prepare you for your inevitable role. I don't know about you—but believe me when I say you have a lot to work on." He stared at the wide disbelieving pair of brown eyes gaping at him and sighed. Really, was a little bit of brains really too much to ask for? He stared at the young man as he clearly struggled for what he wanted to say. Mentally, he started counting down the moments when the inevitable explosion would occur.  
_Three…_  
_Two…_  
_One._

**"What the heck are you talking about?"**

_Denial. Right on the money. Next would come hysteria and then it would get REALLY annoying._

**"You're not making sense. I can't be a Mafia BOSS!"**

_Really, I should've charged Nono way more than the GDP of Cyprus. Maybe I should renegotiate. The GDP of Canada might be more his speed. Considering this assignment, that’s a mere pittance in light of the wealth of the Vongola._

"Well despite your claims, that is exactly what you are going to be."

"You can't just come here and say that! You can't just decide on your own that you want me to become a mafia boss! I don't want to be a mafia boss!"

Looking at the gaping, wild-eyed trembling boy in front of him, he gave in to the urge to grin evilly. Timoteo never specifically ordered that he couldn’t or shouldn’t be a vindictive tutor. He only said he needed to succeed—not that he had any intention of doing anything less but Timoteo didn't spell out how he was to accomplish the task.

Reaching inside his suit jacket, he smoothly withdrew a slick, unusually hued but unmistakably shaped figure. Pointing it towards the now quivering boy kneeling in front of him, he cocked the hammer back with a smirk and murmured,

_**"Now, we’ve wasted enough time, don’t you agree? So, let's hurry things along shall we?"** _

* * *

**Title Translation: DISEGNANDO LE LINEA DELLA BATTAGLIA = "DRAWING THE BATTLE LINE"**


	12. Aprire le Porte del Destino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Standard Disclaimer applies. KHR is the product of Akira Amano-sensei's eternal genius.  
> Authors Note: Well…uhm…I guess I haven't done this in a while so—here goes: I'M SORRY! I know I haven't been around since forever but since if I start telling you guys what happened—this wouldn't be a fanfic story anymore—it would resemble more a melodramatic mess more Dostoyevsky than animation.  
> I want to thank those that continued to wait for the next installment. I promise I am not abandoning it. I found new interest in writing and I am dying to mine this newly exposed vein. My eternal thanks and gratitude to all of you who gave this story its chance. I also re-edited all the other chapters, so if you are so inclined, give them a try. Perhaps you would discover new things or recall parts you've loved before. Again, thank you and my sincerest apologies for making you wait.  
> 2015 UPDATE: Well that vein I was talking about—it hid its damned self somewhere I couldn’t find and then it took my bloody laptop with it. My computer died on me and I hate to resuscitate it and teach it again what it’s supposed to do. Darn it…

**_Chapter 12:_ **   
**APRIRE LE PORTE DEL DESTINO**

  
_**Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds,** _ _**which I should first break through,** _ _**and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.** _   
_Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley_

* * *

  
**Monday, Namimori Middle School**

Sawada Tsunayoshi ran his hand through his messy brown hair for the nth time that day, furiously rubbing and digging into his scalp and tried once more to ease the nagging headache that has persisted since he had woken up that morning. It was like pinpricks of heat licking at the back of his eyes…nagging and itching and making him feel antsy and twitchy for no reason at all.

He tried shrugging it off, trying desperately to control the urge to pace and just hide—especially with the kind of memories ricocheting inside his mind—showing him, telling him, reminding him of things and words and sensations that he couldn't make heads or tails of. All he could recall with any clarity was waking up naked, drenched in sweat, his skin cold and trembling with fear for something that had no name and a pain that lingered in his very bones. There also lingered inside of him a tingling, fiery brand aching like as if he recently brushed past something burning and it still remained somewhere within, making his palms sting and tremble and his chest throb.

He faintly heard the bell for lunch ringing out faintly behind him only to realize that he has launched himself out of his room and off to the roof all without conscious thought. Thankful that his body retained some kind of muscle-memory that allowed him to navigate a location on auto-pilot, he headed towards one of his school bolt holes, mind still consumed by the recent series of events that took place after he met his supposed ‘tutor.’ All that consumed him was the driving need to gain somewhere people-free and quiet where he could breathe. Once he pushed past the doors that lead to the roof, he gently closed it behind him, locking it absentminded and walked towards one of the shaded corners.

Sinking into his knees, he gave in to his shaking limbs and splayed gracelessly on the warmed concrete. Looking up, his eyes stared at the endless, cloudless blue sky and took his first truly pain-free draught of breath. He nearly shuddered at the sensation of peace that settled over him.

He took a couple more deep breaths, succumbing to the ease and comfort that flooded his veins. He stared at the sky for a few more minutes before closing his eyes and finally, finally allowed himself to lose control enough to remember.

* * *

**Two nights ago, Sawada Residence**   
**TSUNAYOSHI**

  
_It was like being pulled into the very heart of a raging inferno. Had the little sadistic infant-tutor told him he was being slow roasted in a volcano he wouldn't have doubted it. The unrelenting heat was a maddening, consuming, unending sensation that knew no cessation or offered any reprieve. It was like he was plunged fathoms deep into the very heart of a sea of molten flames._

_His eyes refused to open—his vision whiting out from the pain until he felt convinced that if he dared to open his eyes his lids would meld shut even as his eyeballs ooze out in a liquid sludge._

_It wouldn't have surprised him to know that every inch of him was flayed, it was like every surface of his body was being cut and re-cut until every wound, every laceration, every bleeding inch of his skin and every single pore was awash in blood that renews itself with his every breath. He doubts if any part of him remained unscathed—hell, even the very ends of his hair felt bruised and his scalp felt raw from being raked over by his fingernails._

_It felt like he was being turned inside out, his body slit open and torn in half, his flesh lacerated in a hundred different ways. He could feel his skin, his flesh and sinew, his very being stripped away like some decrepit clothing long hated and eagerly discarded._

_He was literally being stripped—no he was being burned away from the inside out, like something had been set ablaze inside of him was clawing its way out and didn't care how it went about it. It was a mindless, zealous force that knew no haste and felt no hesitation over what it desired, frenzied as it was with its goal. It didn't care for the agony that screamed out from his throat as he felt his flesh liquefying and his bones charring, it didn't care for the blistering heat that was slowly peeling away his skin leaving him a quivering, agonized lump of pain. Never before had he ever been so consumed by such unrelenting heat and ache and sensation that it was like being flash fired in an endless river of fire._

_And when he thought pain was all that he could think and feel and know that's when he heard the it._ **The Voice.** _It was laughing._

_A scary and daunting feeling paralyzed him and made the screams rising to his throat even more frantic but it didn't end there. No, the worst was to come. Worse than all the burning agony was the voice screeching inside his head in sheer, abandoned glee. It was coming from all sides, echoing and reverberating from every corner of his mind and for the first time—he wouldn’t be in the position to silence it. It was coming and there was no stopping it…not now._

_For the first time in his life he realized that the voice inside his head—that formless presence he has had since before he could remember—the one that warns him of danger and change and of things he could never verbalize or see—was now laughing in maniacal, frighteningly uncontrollable chilling delight._

_And just before darkness consumed him and stole his consciousness completely he heard the once familiar and comforting voice growling forebodingly in his ear…its usual soft cadence now tinged not by caution or fear or concern…no…no, the voice now spoke only of defiance…of pride…of freedom._

**Finally…finally free...It's my turn now...Tsunayoshi…**

* * *

**REBORN**

  
Whatever it was that he was expecting when he used the Dying Will Bullet on the boy this wasn't it. Nothing in his experience—his fucking extensive and already insane experience—could’ve prepared him for this eventuality. This was as far from his expectation as could be and still be on the same fucking planet.

_Well, well…that's pretty fucking unusual…bloody hell, what the fuck is this now?_

The figure that stood before him was decidedly not the same one as the young man that he inflicted his special bullet with. If he didn't know that he didn't blink that long or that there was no presence of any member of his particular affiliation around, he would've allowed himself to reassess his own judgment. Alas, he could only speculate at the sudden appearance of this creature in his midst. Or should he say sudden transformation for he was still eighty-two percent certain the figure that stood before him was still somewhat Sawada Tsunayoshi. However, it was also distinctively not quite the same mild mannered, clumsy mediocre Sawada Tsunayoshi. This was most definitely an unknown, heretofore unknown version of the run-of-the-mill Sawada child.

Gone was the air of fragility, defeat and trepidation that clung to the boy like a fetid stench. Instead, Reborn's eyes could see the near-visible aura of coiled strength that lingered all around the boy's form like a thin, misty cloak. Where once feebleness lurked, now overwhelming confidence stood; where once defeat tainted flesh and bone, now stood overwhelming confidence marked every inch of his skin and where once trepidation held reign, intimidation fairly oozed like a raging, barely leashed river flowed.

_The young man that stood before him was no prey—oh no…none of that helpless prey remained here any longer. Rather what stood before him—imperious and proud as any top-of-the-line predator—was a feral beast that has been finally released._

His dark eyes swept along the young man standing nonchalantly in front of him and once again the mental checklist in his mind pinged but this time there were three columns in it instead of two. Physically, the youth that stared back at him bore little in common with his young student. True, he had the same pale skin but whereas the other looked pallid—on this one the pale skin lent an air of elegance and refinement. The lithe limbs looked graceful and proportionate rather than skinny and weak. The effeminate, nondescript visage that seemed so useful because of its forgetfulness now looked aristocratic and impossibly alluring.

_No one who sees this face would ever forget it. It compels attention and it’s impossible to ignore._

But perhaps the most startling difference that made his gaze flicker came when the young man decided to speak. Head still bowed all he could see were pale thin lips curved into a smile that sent a frisson of awareness through him. It was the kind of smile that would've sent others running away in fear or lured them to come closer to their own demise. There was a cold, implacable sense of danger lurking somewhere just beneath that unnerving grin.

**"Scared?"**

_Deep…seductive…alluring…a voice to compel one to dream…believe—follow. Hypnotic in its cadence and compelling in its resolve. A voice that means to be followed…a voice that demands instant conquest. A voice only a true leader could possess._

"Should I be?"

**"Yes."**

"Do I look scared to you?"

**"You will be."**

"Sorry to disappoint you then."

 **"Oh…I'm not disappointed at all, Tutor…I know that what I am, is intriguing and unknown to you…no…your reaction is expected. What am I is… very, _very_ grateful…** "

It was then that the young man decided to lift his head and Reborn finally admitted to an unusual quiver of awareness that shot through his veins. But oddly enough instead of fear, or trepidation or even awe—seeing those eyes made something deeply hidden and pained shiver through him. He didn't feel fear at all. What he felt instead was inexplicable sadness and anger that this figure now stood before him—proud, confident, and commanding—bore the same tortured, otherworldly gaze that the weaker Tsunayoshi wore with so much more aptness.

_Eyes the color of sun-struck citrine. Living shards of liquid sunset staring at him with an expression that looked so out of place when paired with arrogant disdain so clearly broadcast by young man’s confident stance. The eyes were curiously and conspicuously remote—as if they were divorced from everything else that was altered about him. The sunset orbs still maintained their otherworldly quality—as if even this strange set of occurrence is still just another facet…just one more thing in a sea of eventualities it considers par for the course of living._

Somehow here—in this smallest fraction of the remaining original self—this last remnant of similarity that these two halves maintained—the essence and most crucial part of the weaker Tsunayoshi stood out the most.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi, _just what the hell did Nono do to you_?"

He wasn't prepared for the snarl that curled the thin pale lips that were bared in front of him, hissing.  **"What do you think he did?"**

"Why don't you tell me?"  
The boy gave him a calculating look before those piercing eyes looked away and began inspecting the body that now housed this newer consciousness. The boy raised arms and checked his limbs, flexing his wrists and fingers until he was certain of their mobility. When he spoke, his tone was dismissive.  **"Why don't you? You seem to know him far better than I."**

"I intend to ask him, make no mistake of that."

The boy— _no, young man_ —gave another short nod, his eyes trained around him, assessing his space and his room as if through new eyes. The gleam of awareness lent yet another layer of awareness in those far-too-knowing eyes as they swept up and down the hit-man’s unusual form.  **"Go do that. As for me—I'll be doing something else."**

"Where do you think you're going?"

The grin that answered him triggered blaring warning signs inside of him—but oddly enough—they didn’t trigger any sense of menace. A _wareness—yes, undeniably so…uncertainty by the bucketful, true enough…though strangely no fear and certainly no danger._ Whatever it was that the newly awakened Sawada Tsunayoshi was planning—it didn’t involve violence or death.

**"Me? I'm going to do a bit of exploring."**

And with that the figure turned and exploded out of the room in an impressive display of heretofore unknown athleticism and skill. The young man vaulted out of the balcony railings, skillfully scaling down the side of the house and using the branches protruding nearby to swing down to the ground. He took off running and soon vanished out of sight.

_Well, I guess I should be thankful he didn’t blast the door on his way out. Huh. Guess that also means he can’t give me the fucking excuse that he can’t do something. That’s something in his favor at least. If he had blasted that door into smithereens I would’ve had to explain and then punish his stupid ass for it._

* * *

**TSUNAYOSHI**

  
_For some reason he felt disconnected to his body. Like he was nothing more than a passenger than the actual driver and controller of his own flesh and blood. It was a disconcerting feeling being so free and yet so confined. He had awareness but little else. Like someone else hijacked his body and just took his mind along for the ride._ _Sure he made the wish hundreds—thousands of times before—wishing for someone else—anyone else to take control of his body so that he wouldn't have to—so that he wouldn't have to think about the foibles and weakness and general uselessness of a body that won't follow him. So that for once in his life—his body would finally do what it may be meant to do—what it was able to be if he wasn’t such an epic failure himself._

_And now he's getting his wish, getting to see what he could be—what his body is capable of doing in the hands and control of someone else. It was both exhilarating and scary on a level even he couldn't verbalize. The freedom was addictive to be sure-finally, finally his body was moving in coordination—a symphony of motion that spoke of a grace unlike any he could ever consciously produce. He has never—ever—managed to do even one-tenth of what his body is doing now._

_His body moved like a well-oiled machine, making minute corrections automatically, creating a smooth gliding transition to his stride. His form finally felt right—shoulders squared away and not perpetually hunched as if awaiting a blow that would come. His spine was curiously straight and made him feel taller somewhat, making his gait that much more even, his pace slow and steady. The tension that usually sat on the back of neck was curiously absent as was the sour aftertaste of acid and anxiety that has lived on his tongue for so long. His eyes, concealed still beneath the fall of his autumn-colored mane now had clarity and sharpness that would've made even the most hard-pressed individual shy away in wariness. They were no longer their usual muddy brown clouded by wariness and regret but rather an arresting combination of russet and gold._

_And it was those clear, golden eyes that noticed in its peripheral view a well-known, and much desired figure walking close past. With a feral grin and a toss of his head, he turned towards his target. Time to see just how close He can get to Namimori's idol when it was **him** that's in control._

* * *

**REBORN**

  
He tried to reign in his temper but if there is anything that could piss off his cool, it's being shoved into a shitty assignment with even shittier information not even worth the paper it was written on. Timoteo may be his employer and patron in this endeavor, he may be doing this out of duty but enough was fucking enough. No one makes a fool out of him and he wasn’t about to start allowing anyone to do it—not while there’s still time to correct this monumental fuck-up. He need answers—no fuck that, he needs the bloody truth and he wasn't above waking up the Vongola Famiglia Head at an ungodly hour to do it. He doesn’t give a damn who he pisses off—he will have his answers or god help all of them—he will level the Vongola Mansion himself.

_**'Ciao, questo è Timoteo.'** _

"Did you know what you were doing when you sealed him up?"

 _ **'Buona sera, Reborn. Cosa posso essere consentito per fornire assistenza di questa sera?”**_ [Good evening Reborn. How may I offer assistance this evening?]

"Answer the damn question, Old Man. Don’t deflect me with courtesy. I’m not in the mood for it."

_**'I see you've met young Tsunayoshi. I trust the boy is well.'** _

"As well as a corpse would be if you don't answer me in ten seconds."

_**‘Quite an impression the young Decimo must’ve left on you.’** _

“I told you I don’t have time for more inane riddles, Nono. Just tell me what the hell you think you were thinking when you did what you did. Did you know what would happen when you sent me here?”

_**'No. I didn't know what would happen. No one could predict the future Reborn. Not even someone like I.'** _

"Don’t you lie to me Nono—don't you dare use your ways to circumvent to this situation with your lines and platitudes. You sent me here blind and dumb—no worse than that—you sent me here half-cocked with a shitload of expectations and half-baked preconceptions. So, just tell me what you've done and what the hell you were thinking when you did it."

He knows there's that edge to his voice that was unmistakable and impossible to miss but he wasn't here to pussyfoot any longer. He needed answers and he needed them yesterday. He could hear the faint rustling of fabric and realized belatedly that he had indeed set a firestorm underneath the Vongola head while the man was ensconced in bed. He found to his utter amusement that the thought brought him no amount of joy and he really couldn’t be half-assed to care for the inconvenience.

_**'Honestly, I really don't know what I did.'** _

"What in the name of the gods of hell does that mean? Explain yourself."

_**'** _ _**I did what felt right—at that time. I did it because for the first time in a very long time I did something that felt right. I followed the strongest surge of intuition I've ever had in my life and I sealed him up because something inside of me knew—instinctively— that it was what was needed to save everyone. So I gave in to my intuition and did what felt was necessary.'** _

Reborn snorted. "He was three when you sealed up his flames. He was a child—for the love of the gods, whatever it was that you saw in him—!"

_**'I saw a flame stronger than my own at its peak.'** _

That certainly silenced the annoying tirade he was preparing to pour out of Timoteo's ears."Explain."

_**'When I looked at Tsunayoshi at that time, all I saw was a child. But when a dog came by and he was alone— it was such a tiny thing but he grew frightened and I think that's what triggered it.'** _

Reborn couldn't help the snort that came out of him. "The boy is now fifteen and he's still scared of a damned Chihuahua. At least I could say that hasn’t changed."

_**'I recall the dog was small indeed, but that's when I saw it. A flame that was brighter and stronger than was possessed by my mother, or even my grandfather's. Stronger than any of the flames I've seen in anyone, certainly stronger than mine even during the height of my strength. Untested and untrained and by the gods—it was fiercer than his flame when he was fighting.'** _

"Are we even talking about the same boy? This boy who grew up in suburban limbo has a flame fiercer than your half-tamed wild child? Is that what you’re trying to tell me is the reason you sealed off his flames and consigned his growth to hell?"

Gentle laughter greeted his ears and somehow the aggravation and affront he felt in behalf of the boy didn’t lessen one whit at the sound of wonder that laced through that wizened voice. He realized that he was angry—angry in behalf of a child he barely knew but found intrigued by nonetheless.

**_'His flame burned so bright and so pure, Reborn. I've never seen anything so beautiful—crystalline flames that looked like a piece of the sky itself. That's when I knew I had to do it. I had no choice anyways. It had to be him. The Sky Ring doesn't just choose a successor based on just its affinity but on the heir-apparent's worthiness to succeed. It weighed the candidate’s ability to maintain and nurture the Famiglia. His flame was necessary—to cleanse the blood of this family—to finally erase the taint of sin that we have been chained to all these centuries. The Sky Ring demanded an innocent—the first one ever produced by this bloodline—do you understand Reborn? For the first time since I wore it during my Inheritance Ceremony the Sky Ring spoke to me of what it needed.'_ **

"So in the end—despite your pretty words and entreaties, in the end he's just another sacrifice."

**'In the end, my friend—that's what we all truly are—mere pawns in a convoluted chess game where death and fate wins all the time, hands down. All we could ever do is prolong the game and throw a few wrenches in fate's design every once in a while. That is the best we mortals could ever hope of getting our own backs in this gamble we call life.'**

Reborn ended the call before he could allow his mouth to run away from him. But the words—once thought of—couldn’t be held back for long and he found himself saying them aloud in the empty room anyways.

“Reason out all you want Vongola Nono…give yourself every justification your mind could conceive…it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t gamble with your life or your chance or even your godforsaken soul. You chose a child that doesn’t even know the game fucking exists and you want him to win it.”

* * *

**Woods, outskirts of Namimori Town Proper**   
**TSUNAYOSHI**

  
He didn't know what he did during those seven long hours when the Dying Will Bullets effect rode affected his body—transferring complete control to this other entity hiding inside of him. All he could recall flashes and sounds and vague impressions but nothing else. Nothing more concrete. Nothing that would give him ample explanation of what kind of hell he put himself through or what damage he would have to admit to when he finally finds the will or the strength to move.

_If I could ever move again. I feel like everything in me is battered, bruised or broken. And still I feel wired. It’s the oddest sensation ever._

Idly he wondered at the time if this was what life—what that voice inside of him's existence had been like before the bullet set it free. He sincerely hopes not. It was a maddening way to live—glimpses and half-understood impressions of feelings and sensation and thought. He could not for the life of him imagine what it must be like living like everything around him was a muted after-echo of perceptions and feelings, half-remembered sounds and thoughts…faces that have no names or memories that have no tangible meanings…

_Gods, I’m one to talk…my life isn’t that perfect either and I’m the one that’s usually outside and in control…well…relatively in control…_

His body was aching still though…a hundred times worse that the impromptu marathon that weird Spartan baby had forced him to go through. It was like he has used up every ounce of energy inside of him but more than that—there was this awareness humming just underneath him—like he was there but HE was also there—layered one on top of the other and somehow, they couldn't yet find a way to find each other's proper place or even where the proper place ought to be.

_How the hell am I suppose to know what am I suppose to do? Why did this happen to me—gods I don’t even know what happened to me…_

The sense of impending loss of control broke his heart and made it ache like it hadn’t in a very long time. It was like he was losing something and he couldn’t even begin to figure out what it was that was being taken from him. He didn't want to be so different that he'd be nothing like himself but at the same time—it had been so nice to feel that way—it was liberating to be finally free of the shackles of failure and mediocrity. It felt nice to feel powerful and safe and free even for a single, stolen moment.

He felt tears gather in the corner of his eyes and the tell-tale heat brought a sob to his lips but for once he didn't tamp it down. He didn’t feel like he could even if he had been so inclined. There was no need to silence his cries. He was in the middle of the nowhere. No one would see him lose control. No one would care and for once he wouldn't either.

* * *

**Title Translation: APRIRE LE PORTE DEL DESTINO - "OPEN THE DOORS OF FATE"**


	13. Di Rinascita Non e Per i Deboli Di Cuore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHORS NOTE:  
> Standard Disclaimer Applies. Most definitely.  
> Okay. So I know I haven’t been around. Well, not here, HERE. I do apologize most sincerely to those that have waited patiently. I hope that this would—if not assuage your curiosity for this story—at least ease it a bit.  
> I am forever grateful for those that continued on reviewing in spite of my long absence but I do maintain that belief: I can never force the words—they come only when they will. Like you, I too merely await for the most opportune moments.  
> Thanks and please enjoy. Tell me what you think of the revisions I made. Trust me, I added nearly 5000+ words within the previous chapters. If you are so inclined, please take the time to re-read them. Again, my eternal gratitude to all.  
> 2017: Gods I am still working on this—WHY???

_**CHAPTER 13:** _  
**DI RINASCITA NON Ḕ PER I DEBOLI DI CUORE**

  
_**And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,** _  
_**neither brave man nor coward, I tell you--** _  
_**it's born with us the day that we are born.** _  
_HOMER, The Iliad_

* * *

 

**Woods, outskirts of Namimori Town Proper**  
**REBORN**

The sight of the tear tracks and the memory of the anguished cries echoing in the wilderness around him tightened Reborn's lips into a tight thin line. Clutching a thin slick device in his grasp, he wasn't aware that he was steadily reducing the expensive phone into scrap metal as his mind recalled the tail-end of his discussion with the Vongola Famiglia Head.

_Do you know what you did to that boy?_

**_I kept him alive._ **

_Is that what you think you did you old fool? Then let me enlighten you to a few simple fucking truths, Old Man—you didn’t do that kid any favor. You hindered his growth-stifled his chances of reaching his peak—you couldn't have effectively impaired him had you physically imprisoned his body, shackled him to a post and left him there to rot!_

**_I did what I must._ **

_Is making him weak and dull your solution? Is that what you needed to achieve your goal? Did you simply desire a simpleton to take your place? If that was the case, there was no need to take a foreign boy that’s been living in obliviousness halfway around the world! There are more than enough fools in the Vongola to satisfy your mad ways. You didn’t have to conduct an experiment on the son of your greatest supporter. If that is how the Vongola rewards loyalty better tell me now so I could save you the trouble of having some random sniper put a bullet through this boy’s head._

**_I will forgive your impertinence but once, old friend. Do not forget your place again._ **

_I know my place just fine Vongola Nono—but I fear that you have forgotten yours. I haven't forgotten that you have elected to have me train him—mold him to take your place and here I am discovering that you did all but tie this child's hands and feet and bound him to a body that was intent on making him less than what he was meant to be. Tell me, what I should understand here? You didn’t give me a boy to train—you gave me a damaged experiment and hopes to god I could fix it!_

**_I didn't do this to harm him—_ **

_Then tell me why. No more excuses Timoteo—just tell me why you thought sealing his flames was a good move. What was sealing him for? Don’t think for one moment I am like those simpletons that dance to your tune, believing every single lie you spin around them like unknowing fools. Tell me. Or I will walk away here and now and take this boy with me._

**_For safety's sake—to protect him. That's why I did it. Don't you understand, Reborn? Even when he was just three years old Tsunayoshi had such flames of a pureness I have not seen since or ever. There was nothing else that I could’ve done but the choice to seal him._ **

_Didn't you think of the consequence? Of what sealing such an integral part of him would do to the boy? Did you think there would be no consequence at all to this decision you selfishly made on your own? This is a life that you tampered with on nothing but an impulse Timoteo!_

**_I did. Of course I did. In the end it was for the best._ **

_How is living for fifteen years at half your capacity ever been for anyone's best? If you had cut off his arms or blinded him you couldn't have impeded in growth any less. Did you not hear me when I told you how the bullet affects him? He doesn’t just go into a heightened state—he changes completely—he becomes someone else entirely! Tell me—what good is all that potential when all it offers your precious famiglia is the chance to put someone ticking like a time bomb at its helm?_

**_That is not my intent old friend. Don't you see—don’t you understand? By sealing his flames I made him invisible to eyes that would seek out to harm him. I made him ordinary—far better than that I made him_ ** **unimportant _. I made it so that no one would be the wiser and take a second look at a boy too clumsy to be a threat, too stupid to plot and too weak to pose any kind of danger least of all to anyone else. I made him safe the only way I knew how, Reborn. The way I wasn't able to for any of my children. The way I couldn't do even for the child that fate brought to me when I thought I have lost everything._**

_But why seal him up so completely that now his own body and mind is fighting for dominance? He is being torn apart Timoteo—torn between his own biology, his own flesh and blood—his own bloody mind! Every time he gets hit with that bullet, his body will wage war to see who would wrestle control from the other and I am telling you now—you don't want his darker half getting any darker than he is right now. It takes so much control and focus on that young man's part to direct the violence boiling through his chained half every time it wrestles free and I could see him suffering with every fight. One day—one day all too soon he might lose and then where would you and him and your precious famiglia be?_

As he walked towards the source of the cries, his ears picked out the softening sobs, the hitching breath that grew steadily more even until it became nothing more than faint sniffles. He knows that the Vongola heir was fast succumbing to the degenerative strength of the bullet’s influence. It was designed that way after all. It only triggered the body to go into hyper-awareness. Once it has done that—it quickly breaks down into the body’s system and would be absorbed as nothing more inert than mere energy to be broken down even further as the hours progressed.

At the sight of the nearly naked and prone young Vongola heir, Reborn wondered anew what it is about the boy that roused such protective instincts in him. He had had guard duties before but none elicited any further concern than what was entailed in the job. Certainly the closest he would come to his estimation of feeling was the Cavallone whelp but even that utterly amusing child has not had the same impact this chained child of destiny has given him.

Not that anyone could detect his inner turmoil. With his face in its customary impassive mask, he signaled to one of the SP's under his direct command and ordered them to carry the young boy back to the car that waited at the entrance that led to the woods. The medical team he has on standby would give the boy the necessary check up and booster shots that he would need. Anything else, he would take care of once they are back in the Sawada Residence. He was more than certain Sawada Nana could provide better nourishment and lavish care than any he could afford to pay or purchase.

As the boy’s body was carefully deposited on the seat next to him, strapped and anchored by an attending physician, Reborn found himself turning back once more on his conversation with the Vongola Head.

**_I knew there were risks but they were preferable to finding out that His entire line has died out at the hands of yet another nameless faceless usurper who held no concern for the value of a life. Had there been any other candidate—any other way to leave him where he is it would've been a blessing to leave him in peace. I would've forced Iemitsu himself to secure his son and ensure that he never learns of our world. We both tried holding off for as long as there were other options to be had._ **

_Guess that plan didn't pan out too. He's embroiled now despite your desires. Worse than that—you allowed him no choice in the matter._

**_I wished for a different life for Tsunayoshi despite the contrariness of my actions. He would’ve been better off if things didn’t go down this particular road. His intuition would've protected him from dangers and his father's wealth would’ve insured he would never starve or need to work a day in his life. Better a life with no esteem than end up dead in some alley not knowing why. Curse my actions old friend—I give you leave enough to do that—but do not fault me an old man's wish to protect a child when I had the means to do so. Do not condemn this child to fighting a battle he cannot win simply because you don’t care for the gamble I have taken on his behalf._ **

_Why did you do it really Timoteo—you can't tell me it's all just for the Famiglia. Even you wouldn't have had the heart to wrench a child so cruelly from such a fate. This child could’ve had a life far from the madness and cruelty of our world._

**_This is something even he couldn’t run away from, Reborn. He was born into this world whether he knew of it or not. But I couldn't afford to lose another child, Reborn. I couldn't go through that again and still live. I am holding on to this cursed throne for as long as it would take for him to grow and learn. I am holding on to the hope that on the day I finally leave this mortal coil I would do so with peace in my heart, serenity in my soul and smile on my face. So I beg you old friend-help me help this boy become our hope._ **

_What would've been his fate had you found someone else? Have you considered that perhaps fate already gave you an alternative? You have your son—why claim this one?_

**_I don't know why it has to be him—no one can know. All I know for sure now is that he is this Famiglia's future. That's all I could say for certain now. My son is not intended to rule this Famiglia—despite his hopes and foolish assumptions—he is not meant for it. No one and nothing could change that fact—his arguments and his reasons would not change that truth any more than any rebellion he could stage. The Sky Ring has already chosen its next master._ **

Once inside the boy's bedroom, he used reached up to touch his Pacifier and activated his flames. Two bullets were all it took to render the boy insensate. Who knows what effects the transformation did to his cells but he wasn't unduly worried. With a steady hand, he began healing the tell-tale burns that lingered on the boy's skin. It was the least he could do for the moment. The more intensive healing he would have to entrust to someone with greater skills than the ones he possessed. All he has to do is convince the other to do it.

"What a foolish dreamer you are Timoteo…have you forgotten that very few things in this world is ever certain? When you deal with a nature such a human’s heart—nothing—not even the vaunted Vongola Intuition could guarantee a favorable ending."

His eyes fell on the smooth, flushed cheeks of the sleeping boy and found himself chuckling softly when the boy curled up against his side, seeking his warmth like a small pup, small delicate hands clutching at the end of his suit jacket as if it were a blanket that offered security.

"Sleep now Dame-Tsuna. Tomorrow…yes, tomorrow, we will begin the process of unshackling you…and then we will see—we will see what can be done to harness your gifts. Soon…soon we can show them, won't we…? Yes…soon…we will show them…soon you will be…r _eborn_."

With an amused chuckle, he pulled the thick duvet higher to cover the prone teen’s body before rising from the bed and gently stepping out of the room. He has a negotiation at hand and he needs to focus. Sawada Nana would have to be encouraged to call the school and schedule an earlier break for the boy. With middle school ending, he can schedule things more freely and guarantee that his student will enter high school with no worries. Spring break will come soon enough. His graduation certificate can be retrieved by Sawada Nana herself as well as the enrollment process for his entrance exam for High School. That will give him all the time he needed to start the boy’s training. He needs time to organize a trip into the middle of nowhere and its only lunchtime.

He wonders idly what the young Vongola Decimo’s mother made for their afternoon repast. He is certain though, that no matter what it is—it would be a very nice meal. If there were considerable benefits in this latest assignment—he would gladly consider Sawada Nana’s culinary skills as one of them. Not to mention, the Decimo’s Lady-Mother makes a mean cup of coffee.

With the scent of the meal tantalizing his nose and the promise of a cup of excellent brew, he pulled out his newly purchased phone and started dialing. He had a lot of calls to make and he had no plans of doing it at the dining table. He wouldn’t dare to do something so rude in front of his hostess.

AMALFI COAST

It was pure stroke of that he managed to answer the call as promptly as he did. He was about to step of out of his tiny two-room farmer’s cottage when he heard the distinctive ringtone he assigned to one particular client. With bated breath and a focus he has not had in a while he flipped his phone open and listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line. It was clear, crisp and oddly, disconcertingly sweet even in its even deadly cadence.

_“È il momento. Hai tre settimane per prepararsi. Il tuo compito inizia ora.”_

[It is time. You have three weeks to prepare. Your assignment begins now.]

The click in his ear prevented any need for him to reply. Carefully, he allowed himself to go through the motions of snapping his phone shut even as his eyes started cataloguing the contents of the small space he’s been calling home for the last year. The young man turned towards the rapidly descending twilight and decided that no time like the present to start his packing. He has three weeks to create a new life in a new country and in a new town. Better get a head start then.

As the client pointed out, this was his application and he couldn’t afford not to succeed. It was a once-in-a lifetime chance and he has no intention of screwing up. He’s had months to plan. It was now time to put his planning to the test.

_The challenge when it came was expected even if it was still ill-advised. Still, utilizing oddball opportunities is a talent a good Boss must have and the brat must learn the skill of adapting to unforeseen situations that escalate from the most mundane of events to the kind of chaos that might turn—if given enough reason—into a bloodbath._

_Apparently during his seven-hour escapade while juiced up with the bullet’s energy the damned brat managed to confess to the object of his long-time admiration and affection and gain the enmity of the arrogant high school Kendo captain that took offense at his charge’s blatant ignorance of the captain’s claim for the affection of said female. The resulting scuffle forced Reborn to fire one of his specialized bullets and damn the resulting consequence._

_He then had to spend a considerable minute or two internally arguing with himself whether the decision was sound as his logical side argued that he needed to test the young Decimo’s reaction anyways and it was better doing it for something relatively harmless while his gut argued that he couldn’t exacerbate the situation any further. Still the matter has resolved itself, one way or another._

_At least the arrogant prick would live—a bit hairless and patchy in places—but at least the Decimo didn’t decimate him into mincemeat. With his usual inhibitions shot to hell along with the rest of his usual reticence towards violence—it was surprising that the only retaliation the boy did what to pull out—okay violently and with apparently glee—the wretched kendo captain’s hair by the handfuls. Considering the other possibilities—it was a fairly tame means of retaliating. He could count twenty different scenarios that could’ve possibly come out with those given odds._

_Of course the resulting aftermath wasn’t tame at all. Like the very first time he was shot with Reborn’s enhancing bullet—Sawada Tsunayoshi once again found himself atop an outcrop of rocks, nearly naked save for his shorts to preserve his dignity and his memories tangled like an overexposed film._

_When Reborn stumbled across his prone body once again, he expected the same results but like a proverbial bad penny, things didn’t quite turn out the way either one of them expected._

 

He stared once more at the exhausted and prone figure that lay defenseless before him and wondered who he can use for target practice for this unmitigated clusterfuck. The burning heat of frustration still coursed through his veins and he knows himself well enough to know that he would need an avenue for his rage before it turns into something that might compromise his formidable control.

There was simply no way he was taking the constant of tracking down the beat-up body of his charge every time he had to use one of his special bullets. It was damn inconvenient and annoying trampling through the woods looking for someone too tiny to register and too vulnerable to the elements and wild beasts to be left alone for any considerable amount of time.

**_Where in the fucking contract did it state that I wanted to be a goddamned baby-sitter? If I wanted a reason to be stressed I would’ve stuck to being a damned killer. Fucking easier to care of a dead body than a living one. Living people are annoying fucks during the best of times._ **

Sawada Tsunayoshi, Heir-Apparent to the Famiglia, Vongola Decimo-to-be, inheritor of a four-hundred-year old organization was proving to be anything but a simple, mundane innocent up for grabs and training. He was, in Reborn’s considerable opinion—fast becoming a fucking pain in his thrice-forsaken ass.

**_What the fuck did he agree to this assignment when that senile geezer told him to and why the fuck was the Vongola always filled with such complicated famiglia drama? If I wanted to be part of some demented soap opera I would still be with the Greeks, damnit_ ** _._

Really, on their own, the Vongola could rival any of existing medieval drama the likes of the Borgias and the Medicis could only dream of. They certainly have enough cast of weirdos and screaming divas to justify the claim, including an over the top drama queen that’s bound and determined to wrestle the proverbial throne from  the weakening grasp his aged sire.

He could’ve spent the entire day railing at the family that’s at the root of all his current problems but he reminded himself that he needs to pay attention to his charge. The internal ranting could wait—unfortunately, the boy couldn’t.

"Tsunayoshi. Can you hear me?"

_"Yes."_

"Good. Tell me how you're feeling."

Reborn looked at his charge assessing the cuts and bruises that laced the frail form, noting that they were at least, not as numerous as his first exposure. There was however, a surprising awareness to the soft citrine orbs gazing back at him.

_"How I'm feeling?"_

"Yes. Tell me how you feel. I want to know how you feel, what you're thinking right now."

_"I feel...free."_ Tsunayoshi murmured softly.

Reborn blinked. The boy’s voice was gentle, almost reflective but there was perceptiveness in it that was missing before. Whatever the bullets effect had been this time, it has faded enough to leave a lot of the original to remain and a lot of the shadowed half to linger still. The statement, however, made him ask.

"Free?"

_"Yes..."_

"Haven't you always been free?"

The messy, autumn colored locks swayed gently in the breeze. It was darkened by the combination of sweat and the faint shadows cast by a nearby tree, highlighting the uncanny light that seemed to glow from those lambent eyes.

_"No...Not always...held back...kept still...constrained...concealed...chained...not free...never free...not completely."_

Reborn listened to the words as they gushed forth, unrestrained and unfiltered but no less honest. He reveled in the idea of finally knowing more about this boy that was left to his care and he took tactical advantage of the information being freely offered.

**_Well relatively free_** **,** he mentally amended.

"Not completely, but you do feel it sometimes?"

Luckily the young Decimo was still in the thrall of the bullet and spoke with candid humor.

_"Dreams...echoes...whispers… lingering silence that spoke volumes...muted words...words spoken with no voice..."_

"Tsunayoshi, how long have you been...constrained? Can you tell me?"

_"Woke only once...felt a call, a pulling of similar heat...familiar heat…family…then silence...cold silence...cold constraining silence..."_

**"Nono, you old piece of senile _fuck_..."**

The curse slipped out and Reborn was chagrined to realize his momentary loss of control. He wanted to berate himself and he would have been given ample opportunity but whatever he was about to do was curtailed when the young man turned towards him and pinned him with an unnervingly direct look from those russet orbs.

_"You are angry Tutor."_

It wasn’t a question but Reborn answered it anyways.

"I am."

_“Why?”_

“What happened to you wasn’t right—no matter the reason—I could not condone what has been done to you.”

Sawada Tsunayoshi continued to gaze at the impassively faced tutor and asked softly,

_"Will_ _you chain me again now that you know of me? Is that why you are here?"_

The resignation that clearly threaded that voice rubbed the famed hitman raw and he found himself struggling to sound as reassuring as he could manage given the circumstance.

"I am not here to chain you again. Believe it or not I was sent here to free you."

Confusion and disbelief warring with cautious hope darkened those uncanny sunset-hued eyes and Reborn could almost see the gears turning inside the young man’s head, weighing his words, the old Tsunayoshi for once communing openly with his inner self to reach a common ground.

_"Free me? Even while there is fear inside you Tutor...? There is so much turmoil inside of you...light...dark...life…death…sun...sky...and yet here you are, attempting to stay still…battling to appear as tranquil as the sea. If you are so unsure, why did you set me free now? Or is now the only time I will be freed?"_

"I'm not here to chain you—if it was up to me, you shouldn’t have been constrained no matter what the excuse.  However, the matter exists and there's little enough we can do about it. The only thing we can do, is move forward and try and make the best of our current situation. That’s the only thing we can do for now. And no, now is not the only time you will be made free—it is my plan to ensure that you will be free from now on."

_"Not chained? Not constrained?"_

"No...But you need to be trained. You are—unaware, unknowing like a newborn and there is a new world that will make demands of your time. This world is not a forgiving one. It is a harsh, hard, uncompromising world. It is a world that will never let you forget nor allow you to forgive. But it is yours. Your world. A new world."

_"A new world?"_

The expectant tone in that young voice nearly made Reborn swear. This is a boy who has had a really unstable history when it comes to promises and has every right to be wary and yet here he is—cautiously holding out his hands—willing once more to consign himself to the whims of another’s word.

"Yes. One that you will belong to—"

**_"NO."_ **

The conviction in that one world was enough to stall Reborn’s next argument. He stared at the young man in front of him, amusement quirking a corner of his lips as he noted that despite being nearly naked, bruised and battered and weak as a newborn kitten—there was a core of steel inside the young body that refused to simply yield.

_"I belong to myself...I belong...to the heavens...to something higher...I belong to the sky, I think…"_

Reborn lost the battle to control his chuckle and gave in to the urge to cast a mischievous grin at his charge.

"Yes, I suppose in that you're right. But you belong to something earthbound just as well."

_"I feel...weak..."_

Reborn sighed and slid out his phone. "I suppose it’s time for us to get a move on. Sleep Tsunayoshi, your body is slowly adjusting to the power that surged through you. If we can meet up with an old friend of mine, I promise this will be the last time one of my bullets would hurt you."

_“Not hurt…you never hurt Tsuna…”_

“No…I will never hurt Tsuna…but I did even if I didn’t mean it…I promise, I will try very, very hard not to hurt you any further. Sleep now, child.”

A slow shake and a fluttering of lashes answered him as Tsunayoshi struggled to remain conscious, his words slowly slurring in exhaustion.

_"No sleep...might not wake up free...Tsuna…not safe…must protect…"_

"You have my oath. You will awaken as free as you are now. You—Tsunayoshi will be safe. I will protect him."

The fluttering lashes lifted suddenly and pinned the infamous hitman with an unrelenting stare. Reborn couldn’t help but notice that Tsunayoshi was maintaining his gaze with what little remained of his waning strength.

_"Your oath Tutor? Your word of honor?"_

"On my honor, much as it is. You have it, Tsunayoshi. Now sleep. Tomorrow we will begin."

Reborn watched as Tsunayoshi finally lost the battle and succumbed to his wounds and his exhaustion, his last words a soft sigh of sound.

_"Begin what?"_

"Remaking you."

Reborn carefully pulled the missive he found in the boy’s room in his hands and gave out a smile that would’ve chilled the blood of any hardened killer had there been any close enough to witness it.

With a smirk that could only be classified as downright evil—he traced the words printed on the small scrap of parchment with a thoughtful look in his eyes.

**_Bring him to me._ **

“Well, I guess that’s that. It wouldn’t do to be rude. You are one lucky son of a gun, Decimo. Guess who wants you to visit?”

**Undisclosed Enclave Somewhere in the World**

Talbot eyed the interlopers to his private lands with unreadable eyes. His gaze concealed as always beneath the tattered strip of fabric never wavered from their steady look as he continued to peer down at his unwanted guests from the vantage point he held atop his mountain retreat. With a deep sigh, he clasped his staff tightly in his grasp and prepared himself for his coming descent. It would take a while and he would need every minute he will spend walking towards his current intruders weighing his options even as a persistent voice in his mind tells him there really wasn’t anything to make up his mind about.

The choice has already been made after all.

_Finally._

A short, bald, stooped old man was scowling at Reborn with enough ire to burn a hole through anyone—well anyone else other than Reborn that is. He was clad in a thick clock that gave out an odd clink whenever he would move a certain way. His bodu was concealed in clothing that’s been piled one on top of another with no regard to reason or sense but a passing consideration perhaps to warmth. Clutched in the old man’s hand was a thick column of wood that acted as the man’s staff-slash-walking stick. The thick bandages wrapped around the old man’s face didn’t dissuade the impression that he was displeased.

“I really don’t know why I bother putting up all those damned signs when clearly everyone and their idiotic brethren simply ignore them whenever they willy-nilly feel like it.”

 “You told me to come. I figured you’d curse my ass if I ignored you like I normally would. Besides, I was just about to call on you when I received your note.”

“So you did. More’s the pity then. Guess that saved you the trouble of exerting some kind of effort didn’t I boy?”

Reborn gave the old man a short nod and a grin—but unlike his usual grins, this one is one of quiet amusement and true glee. An honest smile none but the old, sullen hermit would’ve recognized anyway.

“You don’t expect me to deny that do you?”

The old man snorted, scowling at the grinning hitman with a fearsome glower who simply gave a shrug.

“I told that fool never to send me another of his killing machines.”

“I'm not here to kill anyone you miserly old goat.”

The old man cackled. “Hah! Insults...yes, in that you excel in...Though perhaps not as much as that disgustingly robust soldier fellow of yours. His penchant for language so abusive should be considered a talent or a gift—one, I am certain no one would mind being lost in time or forgotten lore.”

Reborn stared at the cackling old man silently until the sound died off. Once the old man finished, he turned his head towards the figure who was being carried in the arms of one of the men that Reborn brought with him.

“Is this the boy?”

“Yes.”

The old man gestured for Reborn to follow him and they began their quiet ascent. Upon reaching a quiet hamlet that cleverly concealed a small hut, Reborn ordered the man that accompanied him to retreat back into the foot of the hill and await for him there. He will not be allowed to remain unless the old man wishes it and the invitation did not include anyone else beyond Reborn and Tsunayoshi. He ordered the man to stay close to the village near the foot of the mountain and wait for his summons. Talbot remained stubbornly reticent until the last of the SP’s were out of sight.

Once Tsunayoshi was settled comfortably on a surprisingly large bed and the men dismissed, the old man lifted a gnarled and heavily veined hand to brush back a lock of hair away from the sleeping boy’s forehead, before using the tips of his fingers to gently trace the face that was lost in exhausted slumber. After a beat, the old man gave out a snorting as he spoke, “Tiny little thing isn’t he? Thought for a moment you were trying to con an old blind fool with a damned doll.”

Reborn allowed himself to grunt in amused exasperation, “Yeah, like that would work with you. The boy is sadly, as you’ve noted regular damned shrimp. Figured I had to keep an eye on him or someone else would pick on him and steal him away.”

“He assigned him to you then?”

Reborn felt the subtle shift in the old man’s tone and his voice when he spoke this time was tinged with restraint and respect.

“Yes. He was given to my charge so that he could—hopefully—take his rightful place when the time comes.”

The old man shook his head in bemusement. “Time—right or wrong—means little in the ways of men and the world. What comes will come—nothing man or his concept of hours and days would alter Fates design.”

“Indeed, but only you Talbot, could speak of such things without being thought mad.”

“I am mad. In every definition, emotion and intent. But that is neither here nor there. Tell me, how did the boy end up like this?”

Reborn sighed as he tried best to explain Timoteo’s plans and intent.

“Nono decided to seal his flame to keep danger away. He didn’t know there would be an adverse effect once my special bullets were employed to awaken his gift. Somehow the sealing fractured his ‘self’ and created a split that battles every time he goes into a heightened state.”

Talbot grimaced, “Utter fools the useless lot of them. Always thinking they knew better. Always assuming that you mere mortals that turn the wheels of Fate, instead of being its unwilling, unheeding pawns. And now, here is the proof they seek as proof of their unending, unchanging folly.”

Reborn sighed and nodded before settling on a small stool as he watched Talbot began to move around the hut. He will not allow himself to get in the old man’s way nor be swayed to defend the decision made by leader of the Vongola Famiglia. That way led to madness and he could do with a little less insanity.

He watched carefully as the old man puttered to and fro, muttering all the time as he slapped salves and unguents onto the unconscious young man that lay between them; whispering words that no one could understand as he used his fingers to inscribe the pale yielding flesh beneath his hands with symbols Reborn—even with his extensive experience and intellect—couldn’t begin to decipher.

“Can you cure him?”

Talbot didn’t look up from his work, steadily inscribing symbols that resembled runes on the sticky paste he smeared on the young Sawada. The sweet, hypnotic smell of herbs, spices and incense lingered like an alluring perfume.

“He is not ill. He was never ill to begin with. Well...not in the ways and means that others would define illness or malaise to be. Ill-equipped and lacking training but not afflicted or sick—merely as you said—constrained…chained.”

This time it was Reborn who snorted in wry amusement, his eyes never leaving the prone form of his charge.

“He ought to be considered sick with the way he walks—the brat is an accident waiting to happen. He's a bloody menace to train—locomotion is not something that seemed innate when you're flames get turned off, apparently.”

Talbot gave a short laugh but his hand kept their work, “No, I don’t suppose they would understand that the gifts you all bear is a sentient being—that while it is fed and nurtured by your lives—it functions in conjunction with the self rather than separate from it.”

This time Talbot raised his face and gazed at the intently looking hitman who continued to pin his gaze on his charge. A moment or two and Reborn was forced to look away from Tsuna and stare back at the expectant hermit. Though the hermit’s eyes remained concealed beneath the fabric he had always worn for as long as anyone has known the old man, there was something so penetrating and piercing about the strength of his gaze that concealed or not—you would always know it when Talbot decides to grace you with a look. _Always._

“As for your question, yes, I can heal his body, Death Star and I have every intention of doing so with the best of my abilities.—but you will have to do much more than I. His body is weak…his soul has been in distress for some time and it has exhausted itself. He will need time and care to recover that which has been taken from him. You will need to train him…mold him…fashion him into the kind of leader you desire him to be. But more than that, you will have to help heal him from within. He would need a strong anchor to assist in his journey. That will be your task—it has always been intended to be your task.”

Reborn recoiled as if the words were an unwelcome curse directed his way, uncaring for the amused tilt on the old man’s lips.

“Talbot, for fuck’s sake don’t tell me that shit like that!”

The old hermit merely chuckled, “Do you not see the cosmic irony in what you are innately gifted with and the path in life you've chosen.”

“Yeah, yeah life and death--big deal, blah, blah.” Reborn muttered dismissively, missing the smile that passed unnoticed on the hermits face.

“You yourself is both life and death, little hitman. The sun is a star that burns itself to live. That is precisely what you are. What you will be for young Tsunayoshi. You will be his guiding star. _His True North_. A task more formidable I imagine, than the one you already carried with you.”

Reborn stared at the old man who resumed his work before sighing and giving a short, sharp nod. He knew the old man was right. He also knows that it would not be an easy task to accomplish. There was just too many things to consider. And as if he heard the words that flowed through the privacy of his thoughts, Talbot gave out a small sigh himself before turning his all-too-revealing gaze towards the pensive hit man-turned-tutor.

When he spoke his soft voice reverberated through the air, replete with intent and threaded with foreboding.

“But take heed my dearest Sun—and hear these words and remember them well—the sky reflects that which colors its horizon the most. No matter how wide and expansive the heavens can be—it can be tainted by that which it keeps close. Once painted on this pristine canvas—the marks will remain indelible for all time. There will be no averting fate once a path has been chosen. Choose your decisions well for if you of all people fail him—the world we both belong to will cease to be and I fear that we have dark days creeping upon us soon.”

* * *

 

**_Title Translation:_ ** **_DI RINASCITA NON Ḕ PER I DEBOLI DI CUORE =_ ** **_“Rebirth isn’t for the Faint of Heart”_ **

 

 


	14. IMPOSTAZIONE DELLA FIAMMA LIBERA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note:  
> Maybe I should reword this as ‘author’s apology corner’? What do you think?   
> I really don’t know what I can say to justify my long absence. Real life became to overwhelmingly real somehow and writing became an impossibility. I don’t even know what possessed me to write again, except for the feeling that I can’t simply abandon this work. I adore the KHR universe for reasons that escape me. I will continue writing for this piece though it may not turn out the way most of you expected. Still, I enjoyed the process—long and arduous it may have been. I hope you will enjoy it too.  
> Also, if you have the time—try and re-read the piece. I’ve cleaned up most of the chapters though I really don’t have a beta or even another pair of eyes to simply read and spot glaring errors. Oh well—you guys can do that for me, right?

Notation: _Italics = flashback/past events_

  ** _CHAPTER 14:_**

**_**IMPOSTAZIONE DELLA FIAMM** A LIBERA_ **

**_Sometimes, even to_ ** **live _is an act of courage._** **”**

_– Seneca_

* * *

 

 

Reborn stood staring at the early morning fog that wrapped around the mountain like a jealous lover and wondered anew if the thick miasma was a natural phenomenon the old crone used to his advantage or a preternatural deterrent employed by the supremely paranoid and introverted Records Keeper of the Underworld.

Minutes passed by and his thoughts refused to settle. There hadn’t been many instances when Reborn found himself battling between his logic and his instincts. The instances, though has been far and few, has always been marked by pivotal moments of his existence.

The boy was the key. He knows that much. He also knows that if he allows either his logic or his instincts to hold sway—there would be no going back. Like a decisive move on an invisible but crucial board game, once his he has committed to a move, his hand will make no further move, his choice cannot be unmade, his voice unsaid.

Still, the boy. The boy must be must prepared. The boy must be trained. But above all—the boy must be protected.

+++

_The boy wasn’t waking up. In fact, he hasn’t been conscious for close to two days since he fainted on the hill where Reborn found him after his wild run through the town._

_“Well that was unexpected.”_

_Reborn glanced up and saw the piercing look that so rarely crossed the old crone’s face and wondered at its cause. He didn’t even have to wait long to hear the derisive snort the old man let out to know the man has found yet  another amusing reaction from him._

_“Unexpected? You thought rebirth would be something easy and uncomplicated, Sun Knight? That all you had to do was bring him here and I would simply drone like an angry motor, slap some weird leaves on him and chant indistinguishable babble in a tongue no one alive knows and then all of a sudden he’ll be fixed?” Talbot snorted disdainfully at him. “And here I thought that idiot that calls himself the Young Lion of Vongola was the densest fool to have ever emerged from that family.”_

_Reborn fought hard to control the flush that threatened to bloom on his skin and only managed not to squirm when the old man gave out a chuckle. His voice, when he spoke, was echoing with the wisdom of age even as he started puttering around the tiny cabin, collecting the bowl he had used for his unguents to be washed up._

_“Well…that’s…”_

_“There are still many things unknown to mere men that moves and operates in this thrice-damned existence you call a life—many more still that you cannot fathom. I would’ve assumed you would be the last person to think such shallow thoughts.”_

_“It’s not exactly like that...and I told you to stop giving me lame ass nicknames you half-mad Crone. Still, I didn’t expect things to be so—messy.”_

_“Messy?” Talbot cocked an eyebrow in amusement at the piqued hitman. “Huh. I suppose that’s a good word as any. However, life is and will always be a bit of a mess—how else would we know we are still alive, ne Arcobaleno?”_

_“Say what you will, Old Man but this assignment has been nothing but a ridiculous pain in my ass ever since Timoteo dropped his so-called Chosen One in my lap.”_

_The hunchbacked old man grew uncannily still as he was wont to do at times; his eyes, though concealed as ever beneath the webbed threads that scarcely made up his chosen blindfold, seemed lost in the recollection of some nostalgic reminiscing that only he could see or remember._

_“Life itself is an unforgiving, unyielding battlefield—one that is not meant for the faint of heart. That’s the reason we call the ones who withstood them survivors. Even for mere mortals, life is a challenge few of us ever succeed in conquering that’s why we keep struggling against it.”_

_Slowly, he moved towards the even tinier sink that seemed incongruously set inside the otherwise rustic cabin and set the bowl into a deep trough that held freshly drawn water._

_“I would think it would be more so for anyone with such lofty titles as the Chosen One. Especially when that one happens to be someone caught between a delicate state of being a child and a man.”_

_Reborn couldn’t help but sniff at the term Talbot used. “More so for one who had no idea of the kind of burden others are placing on him, of the expectations that lie waiting for him and was given no choice in the matter.”_

_The old man nodded as his hands dipped into the trough and with a surprisingly graceful turn of his wrist began to slowly cleanse the bowl of every trace of the aromatic unguent. His next words, when they came, was surprisingly tender for the usually acerbic crone._

_“Simply being alive means that someone made a choice. Life is a never-ending series of choices. Few, we make deliberately for ourselves—most are made for us—often without our consent or even our knowledge Sunny.”_

_Sunn--! “Damnit Old Man! I told you to stop it with the lame ass monikers! I am not one of your stupid goats!” Reborn nearly spit out in outrage but the old crone simply cackled with laughter, going so far as to wag his dripping fingers towards the incensed hitman—all without turning away from his washing._

_“And you should use the eyes that God gave you, you arrogant child. My beloved children are lambs and nothing like those smelly pointy things some so-called hermits like to corral like stray dogs.”_

_Reborn snorted in resigned exasperated. “Yeah, yeah, right. Lambs then. Doesn’t change the fact that this assignment has been one mishap after another. I have half a mind to think for a moment of what I would’ve had to do if you refused me your assistance. This child would just then be one more of those pesky collateral damages accrued from the machinations of men who likes playing God. “_

_Talbot snorted derisively before inclining his head at the clearly incensed former hitman. He finished his washing and was slowly drying his wrinkled, gnarled incongruously steady hands on a thin woven swatch of fabric that seemed older than anything else in the cabin. His voice, when he spoke, was resigned with the knowledge gained through less than pleasant means and it resonated with Reborn despite his desire to keep his objectivity._

_“Men like those have always existed…and they always will. So long as others allow their greed and weakness to rule over them, men who behave like beasts would always be there to prey upon them. Men who consider themselves to be gods amongst their brethren due to their wealth or position. As long as humanity allows itself to be exploited in the name of coin or corruption then children like your damaged Chosen One will remain but yet another cautionary tale that others will sooner ignore.”_

_His eyes flickered towards the figure that lay prone on the bed set in the one corner of the room. “As for the child—well, being human is complicated and inexplicable even at the best of times and more often, illogical, unforgiving and bitingly realistic at its worst. He might face more challenges than anyone else but I am certain he could rise above all that—given the right training and incentive. He might prove to be your Chosen One. He might even live up to surprise you.”_

_Reborn found his gaze resting once again on the prone figure on the bed, his eyes dark with introspection. “Can’t see why he should even try. To be honest, had I been in his position I doubt I would’ve handled the thing so calmly. I mean look at what the machinations and manipulations of another well-meaning leader with a god-complex did to him—he's weakened, disadvantaged and now his own mind is rebelling and his body is warring against itself. What kind of life is that for any child?”_

_Talbot reached out and poked at the banked fires in the ancient stove that provided the only source of heat in the cabin. His voice was surprisingly kind when he spoke. “The kind that offers the opportunity for enduring good and lasting change. The kind of life that alters the very hands of fate. The kind of life that one should live to truly be alive. The kind of life that can only be lived by someone truly exceptional.”_

_“I don’t think I could do something like that so easily. Not if all I’ve ever known of life is pain, heartbreak and misery.”_

_Talbot gave a hacking cough that turned into a wheezing kind of chortle. “Of course not. That’s because you’re a stubborn fool Sunny. You’re also a poor, uninspired liar.” He raised a hand to stall the hitman’s tirade. “You, like those who belong to your little exclusive club understands pain—that’s the reason you were chosen. That’s also the reason why you all survived and why of all of them—you are the only one that truly flourished. You love your life—you are too damned ornery to simply give up and die; you’re also damned proud to simply exist—life means something to you, your own more than most. That’s the reason why we cling so desperately to it—it’s too precious to squander away. The drive to live and survive is the strongest flame that burns inside each and every living being.”_

_“What about him?” Reborn gestured imperiously towards the still unconscious youth on the bed, his eyes flinty with unusual temper._

_“What about him? Are you blind Arcobaleno—to see that this boy wants desperately to finally have the chance to live?”_

_Reborn was incredulous. “Desperate to live?! This boy has spent the better part of being alive at half his capacity. This boy has been bullied for more than half his life! He’s lucky if he could have a single week pass by without being bruised and busted by the bullies that seemed drawn to the stink of his weakness.”_

_“Good. All that experience will temper his strength.”_

_“Temper his strength—!? What the hell Old Man! You don’t get it you old Crone. This boy has been through a lot. If it wasn’t for the grace of the gods giving him a mother who is a veritable saint, I doubt we would’ve found such a hardy soul by the time Timoteo got off his indecisive, scheming ass to inform me of the boy’s existence.”_  
  


_“But he did inform you, did he not?”_

_“After years of letting the boy get to this state. Not just being tethered due to Nono's idiocy—I mean he's been abused and bullied by those around him. All he knows is pain. Sometimes I think that’s the only other thing he has ever known in his short, miserable life. Fuck, sometimes I think that's the only thing I don’t have to teach him. He's lived with pain for so long I doubt if it even registers at times.”_

_“Oh it does. He remembers pain very well Arcobaleno. More than remember I reckon. More so, he remembers that for the longest time it has been unceasing and unrelenting. Worse still, he remembers that for quite some time--far longer than it should’ve been—his pain has gone on untreated and unassuaged. But perhaps this time, you could offer him something other than the unforgiving pain. You could show him that he need not endure it again—at least not without reason nor expectation of cessation. Certainly that he doesn’t need to endure it alone. That distinction alone might foster the change you so desperately wish to affect._

_“I don’t like taking risks where the outcome isn’t something I could reliably predict. I have my reputation to consider and I especially don’t like it when the results are already so skewed against me.”_

_“This is the greatest gamble you will ever take—I doubt any kind of calculation would work for you. No, for this Arcobaleno, you will need something you never have yet tried—not once in your damned stubborn life.”_

_“And what is that, you cryptic old bastard?”_

_“Why, faith of course. You must take a leap of faith Sunny-boy.”_

_Reborn snorted. “What.the.fuck.”_

_“Also I need about a quarter of a cup of your oh-so-tainted life essence. Now, if you please. Try and not employ the one I usually I drink tea from.”_

_Reborn couldn’t help himself. He blinked. Then he blinked again._

_“My WHAT!?”_

 

* * *

 

 

“Where…am…I…?”

“Somewhere safe. How do you feel kid?”

“I feel…different...”

“Good. That’s good ‘cause if you don’t then all this fuss wouldn’t amount to much. So, how’s the body doing? Your evil twin finally settled in that head of yours?”

“Evil twin?”

“You know, that split-personality thing you do every time I shoot you. That one is a really mind-fuck and a half I tell you, and believe you me—I’ve seen my share of weird mind-fucks to last ten lifetimes.”

“I didn’t—what do you mean? Am I going—he—that voice—he was real wasn’t he?”

“More than real. Damn psycho came out and ran me ragged playing hide and go freak everyone out after he body-snatched your idiotic self. You didn’t do yourself any favor in that regard kid—you had absolutely no sense of offense to fend off that personality swap.” He kept his gaze on the young man slowly gaining awareness next to him. “So, care to tell me how you settled your little—” he made a splitting motion with his fingers.

Tsuna gave a sleepy grin, “Jekyll and Hyde problem?”

Reborn snorted. “You can’t walk on a flat pavement without tripping on air but you can respond with literary allusions?”

Tsuna yawned. “Books doesn’t hurt as much as people.”

The response stymied the famed hitman for a moment, reminding him that the young man in front of him is no longer the same Sawada “Dame” Tsunayoshi that he met before. This is the true, purified version of Sawada Tsunayoshi.

“I suppose so. Care to tell me what happened to you then?”

Tsuna’s gaze suddenly became introspective as he tried to put his thoughts into words. “I—someone came to help me…he told me how I should…speak with my shattered self. Told me that…I needed to help my other ‘ _self_ ’ to heal and accept our fates.”

Reborn cocked a brow at Tsuna as he eyed his student with skepticism. “Someone.”

“Yeah.” Tsuna gave a short nod. “An older man.”

Reborn’s eyes sharpened at this. “How old?”

“Maybe a bit younger than my mom—I don’t know, really.”

“Ah…and this someone, how did he look? Do you remember?”

Nodding slowly, eyes still at half mast, Tsuna tried to stifle his yawn as he spoke. “Yeah…he had…gold hair… _pretty…eyes_ …”

Reborn waited for a moment until his young charge’s breath evened out before he pulled up the duvet that nearly slipped to the floor when Tsuna first gained consciousness.

“Blond with pretty eyes, huh? I wonder…”

* * *

 

_Reborn’s pale complexion lightened just a tad more as he very nearly gave in to the urge to screech. “What did you say? Life essence? What the hell is that?”_

_Talbot clearly was fighting the urge to cackle at the image the discomfited Arcobaleno made. “We will be doing the ritual tonight. It’s the summer solstice and fortunately for us—it just happened to coincide with a solar eclipse. A most fortuitous omen._

_“Wait a goddamned minute Talbot—what do you mean ritual? What ritual? I thought that smelly paste was it?!”_

_“The ritual you came here for. Smelly paste?” the old man deadpanned. “Huh. That wasn’t anything significant—just a means of purifying the body in preparation for the next stage.What do you think it was that you were seeking Arcobaleno of the Sun? A quick-fix? A pill or tonic that your damaged candidate need only ingest and then everything will be fine and you can go about gallivanting your merry way to crowning that boy king of a kingdom built on blood and bullets??_

_“That’s—”_

_Ah…foolish, foolish little Sun…” Tabot tutted, “Bound as you are to something as inexplicable and arcane as the tethering affliction of the Arcobaleno and still you refuse to see that there is more things in this world than may be grasped by simple logic and technology. You who even now breathes and exists on a plane no mortal should ever dwell in—here you are—foolishly and willfully blinding yourself to the realization that it would take more than feeble prayers and potions to correct what you and your kind had, in their infinite arrogance, wrought against the wishes of Fate herself.”_

_“I just don’t want him to feel any more pain Old Man. He’s had to feel that for so long—all I wanted for him was to stop feeling it. I’ve brought him so close to the brink with my ignorance and to do it consciously—to cause it again—it makes me feel like I am as culpable as the men who decided that it was their right to play with his life, if not more.”_

_“Unfortunately for you and this poor trodden child, there is no other way. He must go through this pain, Arcobaleno. It is essential that he go through this rebirth if what you desire for him is to come to pass. This ritual with forge his fractured halves so that he may be remade—so that he may be reborn. Just like what you have gone through—he too must go through this ordeal by fire to prove himself worthy of being reshaped into the man you hoped him to be.”_

_Reborn sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his Beretta, his tone resigned. “I’m not going to like what’s going to happen, will I?”_

_“No, you will not.” Talbot scoffed as he rummaged through his cupboards, pulling down jars and canisters and bottles and placing them on a heavily scarred wooden table that already contained an old-fashioned stone-wheel grinder. “Stand down—Arcobaleno of the Sun, Reborn. This is not your fight—not your battlefield to overcome and conquer. This is a battle that may only be waged by your damaged child of destiny and only he can find a path towards eventual victory. This is a fight he must win on his own terms by his own will and his own hands. The only thing you and I can do is wait it out and ease some of the physical strains of his battle.”_

_Reborn holstered his favorite weapon before wryly snagging one of the wooden chairs that were placed beneath the table and perching on it with his usual feline grace. “How will be know if it’s successful?”_

_The sound of the stone wheel grinding against dried seeds did not falter as Talbot’s husky voice spoke easily. “You will know it the moment he open his eyes.”_

_“That’s it?” Reborn muttered incredulously, “I would know when he opens his goddamned eyes? What are they supposed to do—shoot out lasers or crack open like a fortune cookie?”_

_“You’ve been by yourself too long Sunny-boy. Try and rear in that wild imagination of yours.”_

_“What’s going to happen to him?” Reborn gestured towards the still unconscious figure that lay prone before them._

_Talbot reached for one of the nectarines that were placed in a basket near and with a small knife he drew from within his cloak, split it in half, holding each severed piece in his hands. “Consider this as your chosen child’s mind and body. They are split—not part of the whole even if they were meant to be. The true battle that must be waged is in his mind and spirit. Those are that parts of him that split when Timoteo bound his flames.”  Talbot placed the cut halves together, closing the gap. “ In essence there is two Tsunayoshi—the one that should’ve existed and was relegated to being an echo inside his mind—and the fragile flesh-bound Tsunayoshi who never developed his full potential because of the shackles that resulted in having  his powers bound so early and so tightly. The two must find a means to reconstituting his self—in mind, body and spirit. Once his mind is healed and his spirit settled into its intended form, his body would follow last. That is the only part of this process we may offer our paltry assistance.”_

_“What will physical healing entail?”_

_Talbot handed one of sliced nectarine half to the Arcobaleno before taking a bite out of his own section. “Imagine if you will remaking a man. Not an easy concept to conceive is it? But if you will then, imagine finding a damaged doll you can repair without restraints—what then will you do to perfect the human like specimen in your hands?”_

_Reborn bit into the fruit and hummed thoughtfully. “I imagine I would remove every imperfection and flaw until the idealized form is achieved. Correct the errors, strengthen the weaknesses and improve whatever is desirable. Then dress it up all pretty and put it somewhere safe where people can admire it in envy.”_

_Talbot chuckled. “Hahaha! Just so! Just so, indeed Sun Knight. That is indeed what one craftsman would do to an item that has been restored. In this manner, I suppose even the dressing up and having him admired in envy would apply.” Talbot ran his hands down the length of staff absently. “He is healing. To do that, everything that impairs it must be removed. His body, upon the final stages, will purge itself of everything that stands in the way of achieving what the mind and spirit deems as necessary to realizing what he ought to be.”_

_“That sounds ominous.” Reborn quipped and Talbot merely nodded._

_“It just might be worse than you think. It just might be the most frightening thing you will ever see.”_

_“I am already thinking the worse.”_

 

* * *

 

 

 

The second time Tsuna woke, Reborn managed to wrestle him to a seated position and settle a tray with some soup and crackers on his lap. Reborn urged the young man to eat while they picked up their conversation.

“So…what happened to me? A-am I c-cured?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Reborn paused for a beat. “Do you remember meeting an old man? A man with gold eyes?”

Tsuna indrawn breath was all the confirmation that Reborn needed but he asked for a verbal confirmation just to make sure.

“Tsuna?”  
“Y-yeah…h-he c-came when I was t-three or four, I t-think…he came with m-my f-father…” Tsuna gulped and pinned the dark-eyed man with a look. “I-is that i-important?”

Reborn’s eyes flickered for a moment before he spoke. His voice, when he did was soft. “Yes, Tsunayoshi. This is very important.”

Tsuna gave Reborn a sad twist on his lips and a nod. Reborn gestured towards the bowl of soup and once Tsuna started to eat, he continued to speak.

“Do you have questions? Now, perhaps, might be the best time to ask me whatever it is that you wanted to know.”

Tsuna paused from his measured eating to look at his sef-declared tutor, his deep chocolate eyes fathomless.

“If I ask—will you tell me the truth?”

“You’d be able to tell anyways, Tsunayoshi.” Tsuna didn’t respond and Reborn gave a short nod. “I will never lie to you. You have my word.”

Tsuna stared at the famed Arcobaleno wordlessly before a tentative smile formed on his lips.

“Okay.” Tsuna took a deep breath. “Can you tell me what happened to me? I mean—what’s really wrong with me?”

“Technically there’s nothing wrong with you. Also, there’s absolutely nothing right about you.” At Tsunayoshi’s frown, Reborn sought to explain further. “When that man came to visit you—he did something. He sealed up your flames. Do you remember him doing that?”

Tsuna shook his head. “No. But that man—the one I saw in my dreams and my i-inner h-half—they said something similar. Said it’s the reason why I don’t feel right most of the time.” Reborn gave Tsuna a short nod. Tsuna looked down at the spoon in his hand thoughtfully before looking up at the Arcobaleno and asking softly. “Reborn—why do I have flames coming out of me?”

“Your flames—it’s a special gift. Theoretically, everyone is born with the capability to produce them but few are blessed with the actually skill and physique that would allow flames to manifest. Now you—your flames were bound inward—it burned inward rather than expressing itself in a more palpable manner.”

“I don’t know what that means—what does that matter now?”

Reborn sighed. “Simple terms?”

Tsunayoshi blushed in chagrin, but nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

* * *

 

_Reborn has never hated being correct in his life. The physical change wasn’t ominous—it was downright traumatic for anyone with a weak constitution. It was downright uncomfortable for him and no one would ever accuse him of any weakness—his constitution notwithstanding._

_For what seemed like hours black sludge seemed to ooze out of the boy’s pores, his skin would vacillate between ice-cold and clammy to burning hot. Thin trickles of blood lined his nostrils, staining his philtrum like an obscene red line; his hair was soaked with sweat and other fluids, clinging wetly to his scalp leaving his neck and throat exposed and vulnerable—making the boy look even more frail and pitiful._

_But worst of all was the sounds of bones breaking, healing and breaking again. Like the dry snap of twigs that bent and lost to some unforgiving pressure Reborn heard the soft snick of bones breaking._

_After nearly endless hours of the black sludge and the sickening faint cracks that still echoed inside the still room, Talbot came in sometime during the crack of dawn, bearing another small bowl full of a pungent grayish mess that smelled faintly of herbs, earth and something oddly icy and heavy.  He tried not to think too much about the fact that the old man’s weird concoction contained his rather peculiar personal contribution of all things._

_Reborn watched intently as the old man reached out towards the young boy and cut off a small clump of hair, quickly tying it around a small wooden dowel to fashion an improvised brush. Dipping it in to the charcoal-hued poultice, the old man carefully and painstakingly inscribed symbols unto the cold pallid skin, pulling aside the sheets that protected the young man’s modesty to continue covering every inch of his skin with his mysterious ink. When the last drop of his brush marked the soles of Tsunayoshi’s feet, he gestured for Reborn to move away from the bed. A quick flick of his head to ensure that the Arcobaleno has complied and Talbot snapped his hands. Tsunayoshi’s entire body was suddenly completely engulfed in flames._

_“What the hell are you doing—explain yourself Talbot and do not use cryptic messages with me or you and I will find out if my bullets would work on an immortal crone.” Reborn voice was icy and smooth as the sharpened edge of drawn knife, the Beretta in his hand steady as eyes that were gleamed like obsidian chips._

_Talbot paid no attention to the clearly agitated hitman as his hands continued to watch the flames that was quickly crawling over the prone form of the young Decimo._

_“Put that gun away Arcobaleno—I distinctly detest having weapons leveled on my person while I am trying to heal someone. I fear the foolish drilling an accidental hole into something that cannot be repaired by my potions and chisels.”_

_Reborn’s voice usually calm and at times even teasing was stone cold in its calm. “Explain to me how setting my charge on fire is a healing practice. I want him cured—healed not cooked alive. If I wanted to roast the damned brat I could’ve done that myself and told Timoteo to go fuck himself for damaging the boy.”_

_Talbot snorted dismissively. “What do you think I’m doing—I am doing what you came here for.”_

_Reborn’s lips pursed in clear annoyance. “How is this healing him? He’s burning alive—you’ve set the child on fire you eccentric crone.”_

_This time, Talbot actually took his gaze away from Tsunayoshi and flicked an equally annoyed glance at the Arcobaleno that seemed hell-bent on being difficult as well as blind. “Are those orbs on your head completely useless or did you just stick them on your face for decorative purposes? Open your eyes, Arcobaleno.” his voice hissed in exasperation, gesturing towards the young man, “And really look at your charge. Is he dying? Is his skin blistering and burning to nothing? Is his flesh scorched into so much charred meat? His bones into burning embers? Use your gift Arcobaleno—use the flames you so selfishly hoard all to yourself and see how your child is fairing.”_

_“He’s—! He’s not my—!”_

_Talbot pierced him with a look as fierce and intense as the heat of an open hearth—in spite of the paltry shield provided by the bandages he wore, Reborn felt the look just as keenly as if they had been unclothed. “He is much yours as the man that claimed to sire him. More actually, since his contribution ended at his conception and yours never will. His role in the life of the Young Decimo is no longer of significance—he, like Timoteo, is just as blind and unaware of the fact.”_

_Reborn watched as stillness possessed the ancient wise man of the Famiglia and refused to reveal the shiver that took over him when next the man spoke with a voice aged with the passing of time._

_“The moment they brought Tsunayoshi under your sphere of influence, they have essentially given up all rights to claim him. Once the wheels of fate has been set into motion he will become yours in all the ways that would count and he will remain yours for all the worlds and all your existence.” The old crone gave the wary hitman a grin that seemed more sinister than any he had thus witnessed. “Fools that they are. They hatched and plotted and planned but they forgot to factor three things in their schemes. Didn’t you think it was too propitious by half that you would be brought in to deal with a child only someone like an Arcobaleno with healing flames could aid?”_

_“I don’t understand. Explain. Explain this.”_

_“His flames have been stifled, sullied…tainted by the mark of someone else…this fire I created is a means of cleansing his own flames…a way of purifying his fire...bringing it back to the point that it should’ve been by now had it not been suppressed or tampered with.”_

_“So, essentially, we are resetting Tsunayoshi’s body and flames?”_

_Talbot gave a grudging nod. “In a manner of speaking. Think of it as leveling the playing field by making sure that he begins with every advantage. This is your precious child of destiny being reforged by the cleansing heat of flames. Now, for the last time—please stop waving that weapon around like a baton and just put it away somewhere you won’t accidentally put a hole in this old creaking body of mine.”_

_“Fuck it—why couldn’t you have said something before you doused him in accelerant and then sparked him willy-nilly like a bonfire without so much as a by-your leave? If I was some trigger-happy rank amateur I might have shot you.”_

_Reborn slid the Beretta back into the holster in his suit jacket and glared at the smirking Record’s Keeper._

_“As if some trigger-happy rank amateur would even get close enough for them to shoot me. I doubt anyone that inexperienced would’ve reached this mountain let alone know my name. I asked you to bring him here. If I wanted the boy to die all I had to do was wait for you to contact me and then deny you. That’s all.”_

_“I could’ve—”_

_“Not even your regenerating flames could’ve healed him. Your bullets and sun flames might’ve kept his weakness at bay once he becomes an adult but he wouldn’t have survived past his seventeenth birthday without this treatment. He would inevitably succumb to the abuse his body would’ve endured through the course of his rule.”_

_Reborn found himself scrubbing his face in absolute chagrin. His eyes stared out the windows of the small hut as he muttered._

_“Gods above, absolve me from the mad machinations of fools. All the suffering he’d had to endure and Timoteo paschal lamb wouldn’t even have had enough time to do anything to effect the change he’s so desperate to come to pass.”_

_“Indeed. It is a disturbingly short-sighted action on the part of the man who has ruled the Vongola Famiglia the longest. Perhaps…his actuations have been fueled by more than mere desperation. Time to consider emerging possibilities regarding your charge Arcobaleno. There might be more danger for him lying in wait than just from those that covet his family seat. Your charge will soon possess fortune, influence and power—things many would and have killed for.”_

_“I knew this assignment would be the death of me—I just knew it. Thrice-damned family couldn’t even manage a damned succession without involving copious amounts of drama. Huh…is it me or is the flames getting smaller?”_

_“Ah…good. That’s good. He’ll be coming around soon enough. While we wait, I have a task for you to do. Something to keep you busy while he continues to…well…”Talbot gestured wordlessly and Reborn couldn’t resist the urge to quip,_

_“Cook some more? Oh well, it’s not like watching my stupid student basting in flames is something I want to enjoy for kicks. I should’ve brought chocolate and goddamned marshmallows too.”_

_“Don’t forget the graham crackers and we’re crackin then.”_

_“Tell me what you want me to do Old Man.”_

_“It’s not a hard task—not for someone like you.”_

_Reborn scoffed at the leering looking that graced the old crone’s face. “You’re creeping me out—flattery from someone like you feels like I’m being cursed for some reason. Just spit it out and tell me what you need for me to do.”_

_Talbot chortled loudly, smacking his knee with his gnarled hands as he waved aside the clearly chagrined Arcobaleno. “Fine, fine, don’t get your curlies up in a knot. I need you to weave something for me. Not that difficult now is it Sunny-boy? Someone like you—famed hitman and Arcobaleno—weaving would be a cake walk right?”_

_“Stop talking to me in that freaky way and just show me where I can get the stuff.” Reborn deadpanned._

_“Well, they’re right outside. I do request that you be very gentle with my children—they need careful handling after all.”_

_The hitman blinked. His gaze flickered towards the door that led to the hut before turning back to the clearly amused old man. “You want me to—are you telling me I need to actually shear the wool from your mad lambs myself? Then pull it, turn it into thread and then weave the godforsaken fibers to make this mystical woo-woo jewelry of yours?”_

_Talbot nodded. “That’s it in a nutshell Sunny-boy. Better hop to it. You need to have it done before you two leave. Come now, you’re burning sunlight Sun-spot.”_

_Reborn grimaced at the name. “I swear you get more crackpot than ever. I told you—hanging out with no one but bleating goats would rot your brain and stop with the incessant nickname calling! You’re giving me hives.”_

 

* * *

 

 

“It means that instead of showing or manifesting itself in a big, showy pyrotechnics extravaganza—your flames have been subdued—allowed only to burn inward not outward. Why do you think you’re so damned resilient?”

Tsuna blinked at his tutor. “Resilient?

Reborn had to resist the urge to face-palm in exasperation. “Honestly—if ever I get desperate enough I could sell your brains for funds because at this point I can guarantee it’s practically new—barely ever used. I can say with confidence that I will have a field day with that. Either that or you seriously need to reconsider the gaps in your vocabulary.”

Tsuna was blushing in mortification. “I-i-p-please sir! Just tell me what are you talking about?!”

With a huff he handed the gaping teen a medical report. After giving the young boy a permissive nod, he watched as those tell-tale sunset eyes scanned the written report, often re-reading the lines, forehead wrought in tell-tale wrinkles of distress and confusion.

“I-I d-don’t understand what this means.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. Still, if there’s anything I am grateful towards the old fool for it’s that his idiocy really did keep you alive far more effectively than he could’ve possibly imagined. That report states that your body has been subjected to multiple accounts of trauma—ranging from hairline fractures on your arms and legs to the occasional broken ribs and of course, the minute of breakage in your wrist and some of the bones in your hands—both hands of course.”

“I-I’ve had a few rough spots. I have always been terribly clumsy and—”

Reborn flicked Tsunayoshi on the forehead, snorting. “You are also quite a terrible liar. You can deflect on occasion quite effectively as proven by your mother’s lack of current knowledge regarding the bullying you’ve experienced in both grade and middle school but you’re truly a pathetic liar. Comes from being too damned goodie-goodie I think.”

“What has that got to do with—”

“This report shows that despite all that trauma—you have had the uncanny luck of being quite hardy—recovering from these contusions and breaks with nary a mark and no obvious sign of bone, muscle or even nerve damage.  For all the damage and trauma that your pathetic classmates subjected you to—you’re relatively unscathed.”

“Unscathed?” There was a tinge of bitterness in the word and Reborn very nearly flinched at his thoughtlessness. That was not a word that should be used when referring to the young Decimo-to-be. If anything, the boy has been marked all too well. To consider him unscathed was to dismiss everything that he had ever gone through.

“Forgive me. It was a poor choice of word.”

Clearly flustered at the unexpected apology, Tsunayoshi could only murmur shyly. “O-okay.”

“What I meant was that because your flames has been turned inwards—it did the job of ensuring that you survive virtually anything. Yes, I know, you got bruised and battered and you’ve had scratches and broken bones—but if you think about it—really think about it Tsunayoshi—none of it lasted for very long. Your recovery time has been remarkably short each and every time. I’m even willing to bet you’ve never been sick all that often either.”

Tsunayoshi nearly blanched at the idea but a memory tickled his mind. What the tiny tutor said was true. Seasonal sickness visited him infrequently. He has never been afflicted with the common illnesses that visited childhood. His wounds, plentiful as they have been over the years washed off like so much dirt leaving behind smooth undamaged skin. Bruises would color his complexion like a painful palette but they too, in time, healed leaving behind no trace. His bones bruised and fractured, true. But they have yet to break. Intrigued, he raised his gaze to look questioningly at the man who waited patiently by his bedside.

“T-that’s not very usual is it?”

“No. Not usual is perhaps an understatement as far as you’re concerned. Now, this fact has been rectified—meaning with the old crone’s potions and your merging with your other self this problem has been fixed. We don’t know yet how things will change now that your flames will be allowed to flow out. That’s what this break will try to accomplish. You will be training Tsunayoshi on how to master your flames. That will be your first task to becoming a Mafia boss.”

“EHHHH???!!!!”

 

* * *

 

 

 

_“What is this piece of thrash? Something my baby lambs chewed out and spat out? It looks like a hairball the cat refused to claim—untangle it and rewound it around the skein! You need to weave a finer thread!”_

_The disgust and derision on Talbot’s should’ve been comical if he hadn’t been insulting a product of Reborn effort for the last six hours._

_“Arcobaleno, use the eyes the gods gave you—do you really think I wanted a chunk of ore the size of some thugs’ fist to hang from that fragile weaving you’ve made?”_

_Reborn resisted the urge to pull out his Beretta. Whether he intended to use it to threaten the clearly snickering old man or brain himself until he forgets whatever madness it was that made him go to this mountain enclave he really couldn’t decide._

_“Well I don’t know how your brain works and I am stubborn enough to keep it that way.”_

_Talbot reached out and with a quick flick of his wrist whacked the back of the Arcobaleno’s head with his staff. Or at least he attempted to. His strike met nothing but air and earned smirk from Reborn._

_“Indeed you are. Now concentrate!”_

_“I am you damned slave-driver! I wasn’t aware the weaver and tchotchke’s designer was going to be part of my résumé or I would’ve done prior training, now shut up so I can concentrate!”_

_“If this is you concentrating, I wonder how you ever became the greatest hitman ever known.”_

_“That’s because being hitman means I end people. They don’t nag me after I put a bullet between their eyes. I work really well with metals—guns, knives, stilettos. Heck, I’m downright crafty with a garrote. Next time, I’d add weaving to my requisite skill set.”_

_“Think on what you’re doing. This is a means to help your whelp. Something to aid in his healing. Think boy, think!”_

* * *

 

Tsuna inspected the twin orange and black bands that were wrapped around both his wrists. Each band had two tiny beads arranged between seven knots. In the middle knot, a small sun charm dangled, shimmering in the fading in the final hours of daylight.

“What are these?”

“Sealing bands?”

Tsuna’s eyes immediately sought his tutors.

“Sealing?”

Reborn understood immediately what distress wove through Tsunayoshi’s voice and he sought to reassure his charge.

“Not like that. They’ll suppress the residual flames your body will be putting out for a while. The bands will help by channeling healing flames through you at set intervals. I have imbued them with my own healing flames—yours will be converted through the bands to filter out anything but sympathetic flames with the intent of healing damages in your body.”

Tsunayoshi’s eyes fell once more unto the bands and this time his awe was clearly visible.

“It can do that?”

“I made for it to be possible. This will make sure that you continue to get better.”

“Am I finally well?”

Reborn wanted to flinch at the vulnerability that so blatantly expressed itself in Tsunayoshi’s tone and in his gaze. He cursed himself for losing focus but somehow, his usual brusque manner simply cannot find purchase with the boy watching him with such trusting eyes.

“You will be. I will make sure of it. We will take as much time as possible for you to continue your healing. It will be a slow process—there is no other way to do it but that is for the best in the long run.”

“Once this is done—once I am well enough, will that mean you will leave?”

Reborn gave the young Decimo-to-be a lopsided grin and a brief shrug. “I’m afraid not. You are stuck with me Tsunayoshi until you sit at the throne of the Vongola. After that, I will leave you to make the choice on whether I depart from you or not.”

Tsunayoshi gazed at his tutor for a full minute without saying a word and Reborn allowed himself to be looked at. Somehow, in the days that passed, he has grown used to the way Tsunayoshi would sometimes look at him in contemplative silence. When the boy spoke, something in Reborn stilled long enough to remember the sensation of free-falling.

“Then you will never leave. If it were up to me, you will stay forever.”

 

* * *

 

**_Title Translation:_ ** **_IMPOSTAZIONE DELLA FIAMMA LIBERA = “Setting the Flame Free”_ **

 


	15. Sollevare un leone tra gli agnelli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reborn contemplates the possibility that there is more secrets than initially to be had behind the choosing of Timoteo's candidate for the next Vongola Famiglia leader.

 

* * *

 

**Authors Note:**

Standard Disclaimer applies because if it doesn’t, then I would be enjoying creating more adventures for my favorite passive-aggressive baby.

Hi. I really don’t know how to say this without it sounding really off-the-wall, but then again if it wasn’t—why the hell would I be writing fanfiction right? Anyways, I found a vein of inspiration for the moment and I am eagerly but cautiously exploring it. Been a few months, but hey, at least I haven’t vanished for years on end right? That’s a silver lining if there ever was one.

My eternal thanks for those that still continue to read this work. I love reading your comments—even if I’m such a dork that I never really have much to say so I never write back. *bows* My sincerest apologies but that’s just the way I am so please, bear with me.

* * *

 

_CHAPTER 15:_

**SOLLEVARE UN LEONE TRA GLI AGNELLI**

_**No enterprise is more likely to succeed than** _

_**One concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.** _

_**-** Niccolo Machiavelli_

* * *

 

 

They ended up staying with the eccentric, cantankerous Old Crone for two weeks—four days of which his charge spent lost in a flame-induced coma that sought to fix the damages that were accrued during his twelve-year ‘ _impairment’._

Once he was secured with the knowledge that his charge was not likely relapse anytime soon barring a significant traumatic upheaval of epic proportions and with the old bastard crone’s the assurance that his homemade ‘charm-bracelets’ would continue to channel and convert the rouge flames his body was still occasionally emitting into healing flames that would go into restoring the boy, he immediately made decision to go back.

Well, _back_ might be a bit of a misnomer.

After all, sneaking out of a country after essentially absconding with a minor without a written permission from said minor’s parents nor pertinent papers and then sneaking back in is hardly something someone does for a lark.

Though to be fair—all unpleasantness could be circumvented with the right personnel, an all-expense account without a limit and the convenience of a readily available private jet ready to mobilize in an hour’s notice.

Reborn was a man of decisive actions. Rules and regulations were more like polite suggestions to him.

* * *

 

 

“What in the world happened here? Is this—is this—my _house_?! Reborn what have you done with my house?!”

 Tsuna stood gaping at the location where his house stood. He noted absently the straps of his bag falling from limp fingers as his eyes refused to leave the infrastructure he could, maybe, somewhat recall as being his once-modest home.

 Perhaps the term _modest_ no longer applies since he made certain modifications to the former nature of the Sawada home. While he was effectively stranded at Talbot’s enclave, he ordered the SP under his direct command to do whatever was necessary to _‘prepare and update’_ the young Decimo’s home.

 “Reborn what in the name of the gods did you do to my ho—!”

 “Tsu-kun! You’re finally home! Welcome back!”

 “Mom!”

 Nana’s enthusiastic greeting effectively stymied any further outburst from the young Decimo as he was enfolded into the eager embrace of his beaming mother. The woman cuddled her son with enviable abandon, showering the clearly flustered young man with kisses and hugs. Tsuna found himself uncharacteristically eager for the display of affection.

 “Perhaps this reunion would be best continued inside?” Reborn quietly urged and Sawada Nana gave out an amused chuckle before dragging her son and their tiny houseguest inside without another word. Reborn gave in with surprising grace considering the woman bodily carted the said hitman in her arms.

 “I trust everything here was fine?”

Sawada Nana merely blinked before giving the former hitman a gentle smile and a nod. “Well, of course! Why wouldn’t it be? Same old neighborhood actually. The only excitement I’ve had was during the renovations. I really should thank you for recommending that construction company—they were so efficient and ever so kind.”

 “Of course. I spoke with them before I left.”

 Unspoken of course, within that order was also a clear directive to _“secure and protect”_ the young Decimo’s mother during his absence. _Or face the consequence of his displeasure should any untoward incidents occur whilst he was otherwise engaged with the recovery of the young Decimo-to-be._

After all, it wouldn’t do to take care of the future Head of a powerful Famiglia only to leave behind, unprotected and vulnerable, said future Head’s mother. That could spell the end of everything before anything even begins besides being the ultimate height of foolishness. And Reborn was anything but foolish.

Reborn surveyed his still stupefied charge and found the slackened visage amusing to say the least. He wonders anew when he has grown so forgiving of such an oft-despised antic from his charge when he wouldn’t have tolerated such from anyone else.

“Well, what do you think I did with it? I made it amenable to answer needs we will have present and future. Now, stop gawking like a country bumpkin that’s never seen a decent house in your life before and get a move on. I’m tired and I need a good, bracing cup of espresso.”

* * *

 

The house _was_ significantly altered but not to the point of outright suspicion. True, Iemitsu spared no expense in paying for a good home in a good neighborhood but he didn’t push to the limit of what could be done to protect those who would dwell therein. He did the bare minimum and left it at that. Something Reborn found plenty to complain about.

 Reborn, however, was held back by no such constrains pushed as far back as Sawada Nana’s sensibilities would allow. The house was no longer modest, to be sure, but neither was it ostentatious to the point of ridicule. Most of the changes outside were minor—a newly built section here and there to enlarge the living space; extending the lawn a few square meters to accommodate the cunningly disguised steel-reinforced walls; a scanner attached to the front gate and of course, discretely placed CCTV cameras strategically located to monitor every corner of the residence through a control room set at another convenient location that housed the usual SP contingent he brought to deal with things too petty for him to deal with personally.

 The major renovations were the ones not immediately perceived from the outside—including a panic room cleverly located near the kitchen where most of them would be gathered at any given time. He never, not once, found the logic of a panic room you have to race to in order to gain access. _It was a room intended to provide immediate protection—what’s the point when you can be herded and restrained before reaching it?_

 A training room and a new garage were also added. The bedrooms were redesigned and expanded; the windows and balconies fortified with alarms. The living room was modified to accommodate a gun cache the SP cleverly hid behind the mantle above the fireplace. The front door can be locked down with a touch of his hand on a concealed scanner and a secret tunnel that would lead straight into the edge of town was placed inside the unused linen closet.

 As a two of the brilliantly discreet SP’s that came whenever Reborn would beckon quietly brought their luggage up, Tsuna noted that they all entered the same room. He made his interest known to his Tutor.

 “You expanded the bedrooms but didn’t add one for yourself?”

 Reborn didn’t immediately reply as he was inspecting the rooms. Tsuna nodded to the two SP who came down and gave quiet thanks for their assistance. The men gave him a short bow and left after a brief nod from Reborn.

 “I sleep where you sleep. It’s all part of the package.”

 Tsuna blinked before shaking his head, caught between bemusement and chagrin at the idea of being coddled by his tiny tutor. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not a child and I’m used to sleeping on my own.”

 Reborn gave out a short snort even as he continued to inspect every corner of the newly renovated space. To Tsuna’s untrained eyes the room seemed to be no more than an expanded version of his old room. “Of course, you’re not.  And true, you are no longer a child Tsunayoshi. What you are though—is whole lot worse.”

“Hey!”

Reborn must’ve completed whatever he needed to inspect around the room because he then proceeded to one of the expanded corner where a small seating area was to be found. He perched on one of the newer additions to the room—a pair of small couches—and with a wave of his hand, gestured towards Tsuna to join him. A moment later, Sawada Nana came in with a tray laden with a carafe of coffee and a small plate of pastries. She gave her son another hug and his tutor an assessing look. Receiving a nod from Reborn and a rare kiss to the cheek from her son, she quietly withdrew from the room, expecting to have talks with both males—separately of course—when they’ve finally settled down.

 Reborn poured the pair of them a cup of coffee before urging his young charge to eat. When Tsuna started nibbling on a piece of meat pie, he began.

 “You’re the future head of an organization that regularly kills and plots to kill people in order to gain favorable results or attain a post they could not have had otherwise. A position in life that guarantees very little and so we do what we can to mitigate the situation to the best of our limited abilities. Consider this to be a simple security measure.”

 Tsuna frowned down at piece of pastry he held in his hands. “Your definition of a security measure leaves much to be desired.”

“Indeed it does.”

Tsuna pinned his tutor with a look. “So does your choice of words. If your goal was to convince me to join this Vongola of yours, you are doing a poor job of it. Telling me that they’re essentially nothing more than a bunch of back-stabbing, violence-prone thugs doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

 Reborn hid his grin behind the act of sipping from his cup at the clear display of resolve the young Decimo seemed intent on showing not to the mention the heretofore unexpected eloquence. _Progress_.

 “I told you that I will never lie to you, Peanut and I don’t intend to start now. Our sleeping arrangements is but one of the many changes you will have to grow accustomed to now that you are a candidate for the Vongola Head. That is the way it will be from now until the moment you ascend the throne of the Vongola Famiglia.”

“Can we not refer to it as a throne? You’re making it sound like I’m going to be king or something. And I didn’t say I will be ascending to anything. I haven’t agreed to anything except your tutoring.”

“Denial is but a river, young Tuna-fish. It’s time to accept your fate.”

Tsuna snorted at the smirking figure blissfully sipping espresso in front of him before taking a sip of his own. “By the way you tell it—it sounds more like a prison sentence.”

Reborn gave his charge a smirk. “The two may not be mutually exclusive.”

Tsuna snorted. “Does everyone in the Mafia know about me?”

Reborn cocked his brow at the question. “You specifically?” Tsuna gave a short nod and Reborn in turn placed his cup down on the small table beside his chair before placing his hands on his lap. “I doubt many knows. Information you will find, Tsunayoshi, is something of a precious and controlled commodity in the Mafia. There are actual people who survives off the paycheck they get for the information they provide.”

Tsuna sighed in relief. “So almost no one knows? That’s great.”

Reborn smirked at his student’s very transparent nature. It was both a rare gift in one so visited by the dark taint that is humanity and a weakness he seeks to address as soon as possible. “Don’t go feeling so relieved just yet, Little Tsuna.”

“What? But why—you just said no one knows me!”

“Not about you specifically. About the rumors of a new Head coming, yes that piece of information is one I’d assume had already trickled down the very bowels of the Underworld. Everyone has been on the edge since Nono refused to name an heir after all his sons were eliminated. It isn’t within the realm of possibilities that they are considering a new candidate emerging sometime in the future.”

Reborn noted Tsuna’s pallor washout suddenly. Tsuna seemed caught by something he said and therefore wasn’t surprised when the young teen murmured quietly, his tone inquiring.

“Eliminated?

Reborn weighed briefly his choices of possible response. He could dissemble and give his young charge a scrubbed, vague dismissive version of events or he could be brutally honest about their fates. The first would come back to bite him in the end when Tsunayoshi is no longer a naïve Mafioso. The latter might traumatize him and make the young man even more reticent towards the notion of becoming the leader of such an organization. He settled for a happy medium of telling the truth without all the other sordid details. He couldn’t risk alienating the boy, not at this juncture, not when they’ve only made the most tentative overtures towards a true mentorship.

“Nono’s sons were all victims of assassinations. They all fell prey—to betrayal, to ineptitude and for one, sheer unadulterated arrogance. But, that is the lot of a mafia-famiglia heir—a harsh but inescapable reality for those that are born to such a life. Their deaths, while tragic and wasteful besides, is not unusual.”

Tsuna stared at Reborn before shaking his head in clear sorrow. “Not unusual to lose a life? That doesn’t seem much like a life at all Reborn—certainly not one that holds much sway for someone utterly normal like myself.”

Reborn gave the young man in front of him with a short nod, his dark eyes gleaming with a subtle approval at the steadiness of his voice.  This time, a mere month ago, the boy would not have dared air out an opinion, much less deliver it without stuttering.

 “It is what it is, Tsunayoshi. That’s partially the reason why I was assigned to you. My reputation will serves as a deterrent for most of the amateurs that might be hired by those gunning for your seat.”

Tsuna turned towards the sliding doors that led to the tiny balcony in his room, his eyes lost to introspection for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer.

“Will your reputation be enough? Will the protection it would afford me last long enough?”

Reborn merely inclined his head.

“I can no more predict that than I can guarantee what the weather will be in a week. I can only speculate and plan contingencies for whatever situation confronts me.”

Frustrated, Tsuna slouched against the back of the couch and pinned his tutor with a glare. “I don’t want that life Reborn. I want this one—one where I don’t have to be someone I am not!”

“You are however capable of becoming _someone_ though. Someone special. Someone _more_. That, Tsunayoshi, is something I will not allow you to deny.”

Tsuna turned his eyes away from Reborn’s implacable gaze. “I don’t want that life—I didn’t choose that life.”

“No…you didn’t choose this fate. This one chose you. You have always been meant for greater things—you’ve just never been given a chance to prove that you could.”

Brown eyes the color of sun-struck autumn leaves gazed steadily at the former hitman. “Reborn…I don’t want to be the head of a mafia family. I’m just an ordinary kid—sure I have these flames but you said it yourself—there are others out there as well—”

Reborn’s response was soft but they were resolute. They lacked the characteristic sharpness that imbued most of the hitman’s words. “They don’t have the blood of the Vongola, of Primo coursing through their veins.”

Tsuna couldn’t help but scoff at the declaration. He knew better than most that something as intangible as blood wouldn’t deter the strongest and meanest bullies from their nature. Blood doesn’t dictate loyalty or kindness or even duty. His father was certainly proof of that. “That’s not a good enough reason to lead…having someone’s blood is no guarantee that they’d make a good leader or even a fair one! That’s an utterly insane reason for choosing someone! This is a position—you said yourself, it’s no better than any job in the world—only it requires a lifetime commitment. Bloodlines should not be the only criteria!”

He should feel terrible for giving in to the urge to preen but something hot and fiercely proud shot through his heart at hearing the impassioned speech from the normally weak-willed, bullied young man but the feeling simply wouldn’t let go. His student was developing a backbone strong enough to dent steel, he was sure.

“No, that’s true. It is not. But logic doesn’t hold sway in the rules of the Underworld.”

“Reborn, I wasn’t meant for that life. I don’t like causing people pain—why the heck do you think I don’t fight back?”

“Because you don’t know how to?”

Tsuna gave a dismissive shrug. “That’s beside the point. I really don’t like confrontations and conflicts and all that violence Reborn. While I know people who thrive in it—you, possibly Hibari-san—you’re the exemptions, okay? I don’t know how to be a big burly boss that’s comfortable with the idea of assassinating rivals or waging war over territories or whatever madness it is that constitutes being part of the Mafia.”

Reborn raised a hand to stall what was fast becoming a hysterical rant from his clearly panicking student. “And I don’t expect you to. But I can teach you how to be a competent boss. I can’t teach you how to be a great leader of men—only _you_ can learn how to do _that_.”

Tsunayoshi gazed helplessly at his tutor and implored the man to understand his plight.

“Reborn.”

“Tsunayoshi.”

Reborn’s voice was like sharpened steel. Cold and edged.

“I’m just me, Reborn.”

“I know, Tsunayoshi. That’s why I know you’ll be the best candidate for the job. Because at the end of the day, you remain exactly as you are Tsunayoshi.”

* * *

 

**_The old crone gave the wary hitman a grin that seemed more sinister than any he had thus witnessed. “Fools that they are. They hatched and plotted and planned but they forgot to factor three things in their schemes. Didn’t you think it was too propitious by half that you would be brought in to deal with a child only someone like an Arcobaleno with healing flames could aid?”_ **

 

“What three things…”

 

Reborn heard himself murmur the words aloud and though normally not one to verbalize his thoughts for all and sundry to hear—this time around, he really couldn’t help himself. That conversation has been nagging at him ever since he had it and while he consigned it to the back burner whilst Tsunayoshi was getting himself flambéed, he couldn’t completely purge the nagging throb of unease that the Old Crone’s words sparked inside his mind.

As much as he could figure, the cantankerous eccentric already gave him all the clues the old man willingly imparted. It was up to him to piece it together and try to make sense of whatever mad babbling the man really intended for him to know. Talbot maybe eccentric, cryptic and annoyingly troublesome but he never lied and he never revealed more than necessary.

Within their fragmented talks that night, the old man must’ve already spoken of the three things that Nono and that fool Iemitsu forgot when they were planning their little ‘play’. Something they neglected to see or even noticed while they plotted and manipulated everyone around them like hapless marionettes.

 With a sigh of resignation, Reborn settled into one of the new sofas that he insisted be placed in the young Decimo’s room and prepared to revisit everything he has learned and discussed when he accepted his current assignment. The most prominent memory he needed to tackle was one between the one who gave him the contract. Vongola Nono, Timoteo.

 

**'I did what felt right—at that time. I did it because for the first time in a very long time I did something that felt right. I followed the strongest surge of intuition I've ever had in my life and I sealed him up because something inside of me knew— instinctively— that it was what was needed to save everyone. So I gave in to my intuition and did what felt was necessary.'**

 

_NO..._ Reborn understood the words, heard what was said but his instinct has been screaming at him since he met Tsunayoshi that something isn’t as black as white as he’d been led to believe. Nothing about the boy, his life, his situation or his domestic circumstance are what they’re supposed to be.

Something inside of him—experience or natural paranoia when dealing with the members of the Underworld warned him that though he’s been told certain things the parts didn’t add up to make the final whole. Something about the way Timoteo said it, something about the way his words are strung together that rubbed him the wrong way. Something about the way the old man said them—something about the words he chose and the way he structured their conversation that plucked the invisible strings of his intuition and warned him that not everything was as it seemed.

He was missing something— _something important_. In rankled him, like an itch that lies just beneath his skin, one that persisted, building and building until it drives him to distraction. He was missing something and he knows it—knows it like the sense of wrongness that permeated him when he was heading off into an ambush and he knows he only has a small cache of weapons at hand.  It nagged and nagged at him, insisting on being noticed and still he was unable to recognize what it was that seemed so wrong, so utterly out of place about the words he had just heard.

****

**'I saw a flame stronger than my own at its peak.'**

 

**That.**  Those exact _words_ : **_Than his own_** _._ Timoteo’s own flames were strong. That’s the reason he became the famiglia head, the reason why he gained the throne of Vongola and held it for so long. The reason why _he_ and no other became Vongola Nono—that’s the usual requirement to ascend the throne of power in the oldest and most bloodied famiglia in the world.

 

**Power.**

_Why then should such a man react with such glee—such pleased air—at finding a potential rival for his strength? Why would a man like Nono act as if he was proud?_ The usual reaction would be anger, resentment, even denial…its human nature for one to feel threatened by the fact that someone is more than one’s self. One does not react with awe, especially for someone who has spent the better part of his existence being told that he is the strongest—the best. More so, when the threat is posed by a three year old boy who just happens to share a specialized _bloodline_ with you—a bloodline-guaranteed rule of _succession_.

 

**A flame that was brighter and stronger than was possessed by my mother, or even my grandfather's. Stronger than any of the flames I've seen in anyone, certainly stronger than mine even during the height of my strength**

 

True, Tsunayoshi not only possessed an unusually pure and strong flame—he possessed **_Sky_** flames. Not just any other flames—no, Tsunayoshi inherited the same type of flames as that of the original _Vongola Primo_ himself.

  _NO...that can’t be_.

Reborn stood up abruptly and started pacing, disliking the path his thoughts have led him to.

  _It can’t be and yet—that’s the only logical explanation_ —the only explanation that would make sense of every action the man and his External Adviser has taken. Everything they’ve done until now, that is.

**_Nono’s sudden appearance out of the blue in Namimori all those years ago. His sealing of the flames of a mere three-year old toddler who was safely and innocuously stowed in the middle of a mundane suburban neighborhood in a foreign country._**

 Nono did what he did not just to keep Tsunayoshi safe and undiscovered. _No, not safe—not completely safe or he would’ve assigned a discrete detail to protect the child even from something as commonplace as schoolyard bullies_. _Why do that to a potential heir? He should’ve been aware of the potential long-term damaged being sealed could’ve wrought on the child._ The only explanation was that he _needed_ to weaken Tsunayoshi—he needed the young boy that much was evident by keeping him away from everyone. _Present but not strong enough to pose as a possible threat. Alive but incapacitated._

Reborn sat down once more before dipping a hand into his jacket to withdraw his trusty Beretta. With a flick of this other hand, he unfurled the silk pocket square that he had in his jacket before laying it on the small coffee table in front of him. With a quick turn and twist of his hands, he had the two halves of his hand gun stripped and placing one half unto the small square of silk, he began the delicate process of further disassembling his weapon as he tried to marshal the disorganized thoughts clouding his mind.

_Nono hid Tsunayoshi and sealed his flames. Logic would dictate that he did  what a man in his position would do when confronted by a threat—he found the most efficient way to deal with it with as much mercy as he was able—perhaps due in part to Tsunayoshi’s link to his External Adviser_.

He did what he could to ensure that Tsunayoshi would remain undiscovered, unknown and unacknowledged. To ensure that Tsunayoshi would have no reason to be found—no means to being forced to claim the one thing a person's flames and the strength of it would dictate worthiness—the placement of the next Vongola Head. He made sure that Tsunayoshi remained blissfully ignorant of his birthright while keeping him as a viable spare should there ever came a need for it.

 

**That's when I knew I had to do it. I had no choice anyways. It had to be him. The Sky Ring doesn't just choose a successor based on just its affinity but on the heir-apparent's worthiness to succeed. It weighed the candidate’s ability to maintain and nurture the Famiglia.**

****

_All one need do is prolong the game and throw a few wrenches in fate's design every once in a while to placate the curios and the suspicious. Keep the game going long enough to place pawns here and there to move the game forward. Create enough players and opponents to ensure that everyone plays for their side and none would see that what was essential was being deliberately and cunningly left out of the entire board._

The thought brought a sharp, icy sliver of dread to crawl down his spine as Reborn finally pierced together one crucial factor in this game he suddenly found himself playing in.

There was only one reason Timoteo would cunningly set-up a desperate a long-con. The only thing that would guarantee fear in a man in Nono’s specialized and exalted position: **_The Vongola Rings and the Inheritance Ritual._**

_When the Sky Ring failed to even ignite the way it was expected to do so when presented to his sons, Timoteo Vongola Nono must've finally understood the upheaval the family would soon be facing. With the rejection of his sons when they came of age—only one thing was proven—as a scion of the branch family Timoteo’s lineage was no longer eligible._

**_The Sky Ring has spoken_**. It has made its choice. The Sky Ring must’ve rejected one or all of his sons, thereby rejecting his entire bloodline and therefore, he had no choice but to remain as the de-facto Famiglia Head until someone more qualified could come. Reborn understood enough about the Vongola Rings to know that had the ring accepted any of the three young men Timoteo sired, they wouldn’t have fallen to the treachery of an assassin’s bullet. Whilst not born with the natural gift of intuition—a gift that according to the records themselves hasn’t resurfaced since Primo’s passing and subsequently Tsunayoshi’s birth—the ring would’ve at least extended protection to its current wearer and warned them when impending danger approached.

_And when his own sons died off one by one and even his adopted son was rejected—he finally realized that he had reached the end of the line_

That’s when Reborn finally understood what Nono had done.  _Nono did everything to prolong his reign_. He did everything—including shackling a child, not caring for the long-term consequence—so that he could prolong the search for the one **_he_** felt was worthy of the throne. He was fighting with _destiny_ itself.

Somehow, somewhere down the line, The Sky Ring’s loyalty has shifted. It was demanding the return of its rightful heir. The rightful and true heir meaning a bearer of the original bloodline that forged the heart of the Sky Ring itself— **the Blood of the First**. _Primo’s bloodline_. And the current Vongola—for all intents and purpose, like all the previous Vongola Famila Head after Primo—did not possess the _necessary_ bloodline. The _true_ bloodline.

 

_Their deaths must’ve been the final sign that forced Timoteo’s hand_ , Reborn mused. His hands continued to flutter through the tiny mechanisms that comprised his beloved and oft-used weapon of choice. At one point, he withdrew a tiny vial filled with aromatic gun oil and he used the silk to polish the disassembled part, uncaring or unaware of the damage he was wreaking on the delicate fabric as he methodically cleaned the rest of the pieces he had spent minutes taking apart.

_Nono had no other choice left. The Sky Ring was adamant that only its rightful heir would do and so Nono arranged for a damaged candidate to ensure that even the Ring’s chosen candidate would not emerge victorious as the next Famiglia Head._

It would seem that Vongola Nono has made the decision that if the Vongola could no longer belong to his lineage—it will belong to no one else. Not even to the child who was _born_ for it.

* * *

_Three things. Three things the plotters overlooked while they set up their players, their plans and plots. Three things Talbot mentioned as his charge burned within the healing conflagration that sought to repair what had once been broken. Three things that seemed to him now so glaringly obvious in their truth._

 

**Tsunayoshi’s origin.**

_The golden-haired man that appeared in Tsunayoshi’s healing dream. **Primo**. They did not know that Tsunayoshi would be protected by Primo’s very blood. That the man that founded the world’s strongest famiglia would find a way to ensure the survival and continued health of those that bore his blood even from beyond the grave. _

**The power of the Vongola blood.**

_They forgot the resilience and inherent power in the blood of Primo. He, after all bore the strongest and purest flame in all their world—couple that with his Hyper-Intuition and you have a man who could fight like the God of War himself. And here was Tsunayoshi—the boy born with his blood, his flame and his accursed, thrice-damned gift of intuition—the only one blessed enough to be born with all three requirement necessary to wrestle control from the one man that guarded the throne of the Vongola the longest, through its most bloodied history._

**The Sun Arcobaleno.**

And that’s where _**he**_ came in. The Vongola-approved tutor. The infamous hitman. _They didn’t factor in the idea that he would seek out Talbot. They gave him a pathetic report in order to make him so disgusted as to not delve any deeper. They wanted him offended and annoyed. They expected him to use the Dying Will Bullets to trigger his change but they didn’t know that Tsunayoshi would have a singularly unique reaction to it. They were not aware of the split Nono’s action has resulted in. They expected him to train a damaged boy to the point that he could be considered a viable candidate but nothing more._

_But more than that. They expected **Tsunayoshi** to fail. They expected _ **HIM** _to fail. They did not expect him to bring him to Talbot to heal. They never factored in the idea that he himself would willingly use his own flames to heal Tsunayoshi. That he would allow his own life-force to augment the damaged and flailing life of a boy that’s been deliberately manipulated and shackled by a man that he met no more than a handful of hours._

* * *

 

 

_**"The moment they brought Tsunayoshi under your sphere of influence, they have essentially given up all rights to claim him. Once the wheels of fate has been set into motion he will become yours in all the ways that would count and he will remain yours for all the worlds and all your existence.”** _

Talbot's words muttered cryptically that fateful day echoed in his mind and Reborn couldn't resist giving out a soft chuckle. His right hand made a quick flick and the deadly snick of metal locking in place sounded loudly in the consuming silence of the room. Had anyone been unfortunate enough to be in the same room at that moment, they probably would’ve had nightmares of endless days as a sliver of the setting sun filtered into the room just enough to illuminate the unholy fires that blazed from the depth of twin obsidian orbs barely held in check by the concealing shadows of a cleverly tipped fedora. They certainly would’ve chosen to jump out the balcony as a cold, cruel voice whispered gleefully in the quickly creeping darkness.

  **“Oh we’re going to have so much fun, Little Tuna, _no_  -- _Il mio leoncino_. But first, I need to teach him to pounce. And then… Oh, yes…my little cub will soon come out to play…”**

 

* * *

 

**_Title Translation:  SOLLEVARE UN LEONE TRA GLI AGNELLI = “Raising a Lion Among Lambs”_ **

****

 

 


	16. DUE META DI VOI

 

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

Standard blah. Blah. Deciding to strike while the iron is still hot and my Muse is still hovering around like the indecisive, moody little witch that it is. Try not to jinx it and me people. I would really love to hear feedback even if I am criminally negligent in replying—I read and re-read every comment. I just don't know how to reply that's all. Don't sue me and review even if only to say that I suck. Thanks to those that read and continues to read this piece. I do adore this fic...no matter that it fights me tooth and nail every single time. Again, your comments fuel my commitment...it may not sound much, but encouragements and criticisms are more than welcome. Please enjoy.

* * *

_**CHAPTER 16** _

**DUE META DI VOI**

" _ **Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield, but to my own strength.**_

_**Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but for the patience to win my freedom."** _

_\- Rabindranath Tagore_

* * *

When Reborn started looking like a thundering storm and muttering like a deranged goblin on a warpath, Tsunayoshi decided that retreat was the better part of valor and quietly slipped away. He resolved to spend his time acquainting himself with his new rooms and found to his delight that his previous bathroom has been expanded from a small nook to nearly half the size of his original bedroom.

Bemused somewhat by his constantly shifting world since the erstwhile introduction of his sadistic and clearly unhinged, if well-meaning tutor, Tsuna opted not to worry about whatever dastardly plans the man was concocting and simply give in to the need for creature comfort.

The past weeks have been spent with him being more or less prone on his back and while the odd old man who was 'healing' him washed and rinsed his skin whenever he would apply his salves and unguents, he has never really gotten a chance to get completely cleaned up. The quick shower he took before they boarded the plane certainly didn't count. And so, granted a few, precious moments to himself, Tsuna elected to indulge in a long, protracted and relaxing bath.

Tsunayoshi stood under the soothing spray of the shower, the temperature of the water turned as scalding as he could take it and tried to marshal once more the chaotic mess that has become his reality recently.

The hypnotic thundering of the waters flowing over his head draped over him like a comforting cocoon, his mind relaxing enough to allow the reins of awareness to dull until he sinks to a meditative trance, head bowed and eyes closed, his body relaxing in increments until the water receded into a muted hum and he grew conscious of everything and nothing at the same time.

He was aware of the dichotomy in which he existed at the moment and wondered anew how he would have to relearn and unlearn everything. When he first crossed the threshold, there was a clear sense of trepidation that assaulted his sense but also a curious sense of freedom.

The house was the same and yet new—different yet undeniably familiar. There were many aspects of the house that remained the same and yet, it was altered enough not to be an exact replica of the place that he once called home. The memories—were diluted in some places making them more bearable; others, nostalgically untouched—their memories warm and soothing to his still-frayed nerves.

It didn't escape his notice that the house was very much like himself. An odd amalgamation of old and new. And much like himself since he awoke last in that dusky, shadowed bed inside a hermit's house on top of the mountains, there is fear inside of him for the parts that he is now only being reacquainted with and yet there is that sense of rightness and ease in finally being whole.

As the water continued to pound rhythmically all around him, he recalled the strange vision that he had while lost in what his tutor and the old hermit termed as 'healing sleep'. It wasn't really slumber, not really, not when he was fairly certain that his mind had awareness even if it had disassociated itself with his body. There was also the curious lack of awareness for the world outside of his mind but back then—back then it didn't seem to matter all that much. All that mattered was navigating that darkness that wrapped all around him like a warm morass of shadows.

_Tsunayoshi told Reborn everything. Everything he asked, everything he wanted or needed to hear. Tsunayoshi told Reborn what Reborn asked of him. Everything else he didn't—Tsunayoshi felt was inherently just for him. He didn't see any need to share it with anyone because for the first time ever, Tsunayoshi had something that didn't belong to anyone but himself. For the first time ever in his life, Tsunayoshi had a secret that didn't hurt him._

_Tsunayoshi told Reborn what he remembered. He just didn't say that he remembered it all or that days after they went back to Namimori, he would sleep and relive it all over again. He certainly couldn't tell his tutor that he did more than relive it—he continued on from that initial contact._

* * *

**_He woke to a world burning._ **

_In the short time it took for him to open his eyes , it didn't take long for him to understand that he was standing in the heart of a space drowning in flames, an intense crimson blaze surrounding everything around him. The sight was enough to convince him that he has finally succumbed to the fiery pits of despair and resigned himself to his final resting place._

_The unremitting heat was familiar…it was a feeling that has enveloped him before…like a half-forgotten dream one experiences when one wakes unexpectedly…like memories that refused to completely fade even as it remained teasing at the periphery of one's mind. Though this time around the flames remained not unlike the vague, barely recalled mirage they always seemed to be, leaving behind a lingering feeling of frustration and déjà vu._

_He refused to open his eyes beyond that first instance...he needed no reminder of his world crumbling…ever since he grew up to understand how twisted some aspect of his life was it has always been like that for him—his dreams were constantly plagued by feelings of unrest and uncertainty. He know full well that nothing worthwhile would be waiting for him beyond the consuming darkness beneath his lids._

_He could feel the oddly tantalizing warmth enveloping him but he doesn't try to move nor do anything. He refused to do anything beyond enduring the silence, the darkness and the heat that now grew with his every breath. He would wait it out. He has learned how over the years. Years of living with pain has taught him that._

_The flames grow hotter. More insistent. No longer was it a gentle warmth. No, it has now grown into a roaring conflagration that seemed determined to consume him. With every breath it's like fire flickers angry, vengeful tongues of heat across every inch of his body—incinerating his skin until it feels like they're being reduced to ashes; his bones drying within the unforgiving inferno until they became brittle and crumble into pale shards and his blood—gods his blood feels like they're being set to boiling...liquefying his innards until he wonders in macabre horror if he'll ever be able to look at a roast without a sympathetic shudder._

_It was at that moment when the pain crossed unto heretofore unknown threshold that he heard the most peculiar of things, the oddness enough to distract his mind from the all-consuming agony of heat and helplessness and ache. He heard a strange voice, deep, smooth and infused with an unusual flavor of tones that echoed all around him._

OPEN YOUR EYES

_His first instincts kicked in and denial gushed out. It was almost automatic now for him to deny anything and everything—be it whose fault it was that something was broken when the teacher asked, or his mother when she inquired about bruises she couldn't remember him having—and this time was no different._

_**No…** _

_Pain surged anew and for a moment Tsuna lost himself to the heat but the voice came once more. Calm and insistent it came again and again…_

COME NOW…OPEN YOUR EYES, LITTLE ONE...

_Tsuna would've shaken his head if he still knew how. From the moment he open his eyes in this strange landscape of sorts he has steadily lost all conscious awareness of his body, losing all orientation except for the heat and the pain that came and ebbed like the unforgiving tide._

_**I don't want to see…** _

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE?

_**I don't want to see myself…my world burning…** _

AND WHY IS SHOULD IT BE BURNING?

_**Because I'm no good…I'm no good and I'll never be good enough for anything…** _

_The words left a bitter, acrid taste in his mouth but they were nonetheless true. Tsuna bargained with himself long ago that since his world never seemed to be exactly what he wanted it to be and people rarely, if at all, were ever really truly themselves anywhere at any time, that he would never resort to lying to himself. He argued that people already did that to him—he owed it to himself to be truthful if nothing else, in spite of everything._

NO GOOD?

_**Yes…** _

DO YOU WANT THE FIRES TO GO AWAY?

_The voice was coaxed confidence, its deep smooth tones soothing to his fevered mind and Tsuna couldn't prevent the words that came from pouring out…the hopeful yearnings that he kept in the deepest oubliette of his mind and heart._

_**I want the pain to stop…I want to stop being afraid…** _

AND THE FLAMES? ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE FIRES CHILD…?

_**I-I don't mind as long as it doesn't hurt me…sometimes…sometimes it keeps me warm when I get cold and lonely…** _

AH CHILD…YOU REALLY ARE A CHILD OF MY BLOOD…

_The voice sounded pleased…happy…and Tsunayoshi could only writhe in the maddening heat and wonder. No one, save his mother, has ever sounded pleased about anything that concerned him. But the strange voice sounded proud and warm…like Tsuna was an expected joy that he was now embracing and the feeling of approval—so warm and comforting—nothing like the cold, frigid disdain of his classmates and teachers—shot through Tsuna like a beam of light, easing him from the pain for an endless moment, allowing him to forget the heat…allowing him to forget all the hurt._

_But doubt, like an insidious shadow that loomed ever-close to Tsuna crawled into his psyche and stole what little relief he had gained._

_**A child of what…I don't understand what you're saying…** _

YOU WILL…COME NOW…OPEN YOUR EYES CHILD…NOTHING HERE WILL HURT YOU…

_**It might…everything and almost everyone has before…** _

I PROMISE CHILD…NOTHING WILL HURT YOU HERE…NOW, COME ON…OPEN YOUR EYES…THERE'S SOMEONE HERE WHO'S BEEN WAITING A LONG TIME TO MEET YOU…

_**Who…?** _

ME…

* * *

_The heat and the flames cut off like they were never there. It was as if all the pressure building inside of him, burning out and incinerating everything around him was suddenly sucked out by a vacuum or a black hole and all that was left behind was a vast, echoing void._

_For a moment, Tsuna squeezed his eyes shut even further, his body braced for the next influx of pain or heat or whatever else it is that may come. Long moments passed and there was—was silence and a presence that watched and waited…patient…comforting and oddly familiar even from behind the murky depths of his frazzled mind and the concealment of his lids._

_Slowly, slowly he allowed himself to relax in increments. He counted off his heartbeat, feeling it slow down until it no longer resembled the frantic tattoo of a drum of war…he measured off his breathing with the lulling tempo of his pulse. After a count of a hundred, Tsuna cautiously, warily allowed his lids to lift and see for himself who it was that called out to him in the depths of his fire-riddled mind._

_The voice belonged to a shimmering, glowing figure of an older man that floated before him. Tsunayoshi couldn't decide whether he should be more worried over the fact that his imagination conjured a stranger—a foreigner at that—that glowed, floated and was older than he was or that his imagination was so out of whack, it created the illusion of a man wearing a white three-piece suit with a cape of all things, pale-skinned and aristocratic looking, with piercing unusually blue eyes and golden hair that was burning somewhere in the vicinity of said figure's forehead._

DECIMO…

_Tsuna blinked when he heard the voice and noted that the man's lips weren't moving. The voice was still calm and deep but there was a fringe of amusement that threaded through the voice now. Tsuna wasn't sure what the man was saying though. Who or what exactly was a decimo?_

_The man smirked and then shifted, straightening his posture for a bit before giving out a faint snort. With a turn the man sat down—on air—clearly at ease as if some invisible piece of furniture supported his frame. If that wasn't the oddest thing, the man actually gave Tsuna a grin before nonchalantly crossing his legs and wrapping his entwined hands around his knees. That done, he tilted his head as if prompting a reply and Tsuna realized that the man was referring to him when he said that strange word. Considering if that was a greeting, Tsuna took a deep breath, and considered his options. He was in his mind or or else he was dead and was in limbo. Either ways, he couldn't be hurt more than he already suffered a few moments back and this man did call out to him for some reason. And so, marshalling what little courage he had and replied softly._

_**Hello...** _

IT'S VERY NICE TO FINALLY MEET YOU DECIMO…

_**N-n-nice to meet you too…Sir…** _

AH...POLITE AS EVER…YOU ARE A DELIGHTFUL CHILD…I HAVE WANTED TO MEET YOU FOR A LONG TIME DECIMO…

_**I'm sorry but who are you?** _

AH! OF COURSE! PARDON ME, WHERE ARE MY MANNERS—YOU MAY CALL ME PRIMO.

_**Primo?** _

YES…

_**Anou…what's a Decimo?** _

NOT WHAT…WHO…

_**Oh…so who's Decimo?** _

YOU ARE…YOU WILL BE…

Tsuna blanched at the clearly amused looking man. He couldn't have prevented the squeak he let out even if he knew how. It certainly didn't help that the strange still floating man was smiling down at him like a particularly indulgent parent.

_**Me!?** _

YES…YOU ARE DECIMO…MY DESCENDANT…MY CHOSEN HEIR…

_Panic assailed Tsuna with the words that the man in front of him and words poured out like a torrent, his eyes wide in terror and his voice quivering as he shook his head in denial, hands waving around frantically._

_**I'm not Decimo! I'm Tsunayoshi! My name's Sawada Tsunayoshi and I don't know you sir—I don't think I'm your heir or anything! We're not even related! I mean I don't think we are since you're not Japanese, at least I don't think you are with a name like Primo—not that it's a bad name or anything like that—!** _

BREATH DECIMO…CALM DOWN…

_**I-I…!How can I calm down! I am talking to a stranger that's floating in front of me and he's telling me I have to be some kind of heir! You're—you sound just like Reborn!** _

_The shimmering man raised both hands in placation, a serene smile on his lips and an understanding look in his eyes. Tsuna fisted his hands and tried to wrangle his breath into something resembling normal._

_**I-i-i…** _

PEACE DECIMO…PEACE TSUNAYOSHI…

_**I-I…I'm sorry…i-it's just that…I-I don't know what's going on and now you tell me this…and I'm just so tired of being confused and—!** _

PEACE DECIMO AND KNOW THAT I AM NOT HERE TO JUDGE YOU…CALM YOUR FEARS THAT I FIND YOU LACKING…EASE YOUR MIND…

_The words served as a balm to Tsuna's frazzled thoughts. Taking a deep breath, he reached up to his chest and tried as best as he could to calm the frantic tattooing beat of his heart, forcing himself to calm down as he had done countless times before when bullies chased him and he hid in every nook and cranny he could find, praying that they would pass him by undiscovered and undisturbed. Closing his eyes, he blocked out the distraught voice screaming at him from all the echoes of thoughts bouncing inside his head and tried to concentrate on one thing at a time. He latched onto the last word the strange man mentioned and decided to deal with that first._

_**My mind…? What do you mean? Where am I…? What is this place?** _

THIS IS YOUR MIND…OR A VERSION OF IT, I SUPPOSE…

_**You suppose? Okay, so I am inside my own mind and there's a foreign-looking man that's telling me to calm down. Who are you really Primo and why are you in my head?** _

I AM SOMEONE WHO HAS WATCHED OVER YOU FOR MANY YEARS NOW DECIMO…

_The thought caused a ping to ring inside of Tsuna and he wondered if this was the presence that occasionally called out to him in the depths of his mind. He discretely turned to the man and recalling his last few statements felt instinctively that no, this wasn't quite the same voice._

_**Why?** _

BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU…

_**Why would you do that…?** _

YOU ARE, AFTER ALL BLOOD OF MY BLOOD…

_Blood of your blood—You mean we're related?!_

INDEED WE ARE, LITTLE DECIMO. ALAS, AS PLEASANT AS OUR REUNION IS, THAT IS NOT THE ONLY REASON WHY WE ARE HERE…

_**That's not? Then why are we here Primo?** _

WE'RE HERE FOR HIM…

_The figure raised a hand and pointed to something that lay behind Tsuna. Turning, Tsunayoshi peered into the endless burning void, idly noting that while they were conversing the fire was slowly inching away until a clear perimeter was established around them…a small circle free from the flames that led to a long flame-lit path._

_Squinting in the gloom, Tsuna couldn't see much at first. But with every flicker and dance of the flame, the darkness receded minutely until the swirling depths slowly, by increments grew definition and shape…the undulating inferno that surrounded them ebbed like the tide, swaying as if blown by an invisible might hand until between one breath and the next, between infinite darkness and momentary clarity Tsuna gained sight of the figure that stood no more than seven feet away from him, making his breath catch and he wonder how in the world he could've missed it._

_**W-who—who is that…?** _

DON'T YOU RECOGNIZE HIM DECIMO?

_**It—he—can't be me—! He can't be, can he?** _

THAT IS YOU DECIMO…OR AT LEAST, A PART OF YOU…

_**What do you mean?** _

I MEAN EXACTLY THAT…HE IS A PART OF YOU THAT'S BEEN…SEPARATED FROM YOU…

_**W-what…I-i-I don't understand…** _

WHAT DO YOU SEE TSUNAYOSHI-DECIMO…? TELL ME…HOW DOES HE LOOK TO YOU…?

_**I—he looks-he's angry...** _

IS THAT ALL…? IS THAT ALL YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT THIS TWIN OF YOURS…IS THAT ALL YOU FEEL FROM HIM...?

_**He looks like he's in pain...** _

HE IS…HE HAS BEEN SUFFERING FOR A VERY LONG TIME NOW AND HE'S GROWING TIRED…SOON…HE WON'T JUST BE TIRED…SOON…IF SOMETHING IS NOT DONE…IF NOTHING CHANGES…SOON, HE WILL GROW ANGRY…HE WILL GROW RESENTFUL…HE WILL RAGE AND THEN…THEN HE WILL LOSE HIMSELF COMPLETELY…SOON…HE WILL BE LOST…

_**NO!** _

_The denial echoed loudly in Tsuna's head and he couldn't explain why he was certain that he could not allow such a fact to come to life. This figure—this twin image of his cannot be lost to anger and rage! No matter what, Tsunayoshi could not allow this part of himself to be lost to god knows what kind of hell anger would lead. It was not a path that he could let himself standby and allow. Without hesitation, he approached the figure that has stood remote and still while he conversed with the older man, still and stoic as if he stood removed from everything and everyone and the sight stabbed straight into Tsuna's heart like a festering open wound that throbbed painfully with every breath he took._

* * *

_The figure that stood before him was not tall._

**Huh, I guess that put paid to the idea that I wouldn't have been a shrimp otherwise. Good to know.**

_But that is where the disappointment ended. The young man that stood before him possessed the kind of self-assurance and awareness he would've sold his soul to obtain. There was a stillness to the figure standing in front of him, an air of purpose…of expectation that Tsuna never could even imagine owning or even contemplating. It was a concept to unfathomable to his weary, constantly wary mind._

_This was SOMEBODY. For someone like Tsuna who has spent more years being invisible than not, he understood intrinsically what being a nobody was like—unseen, unheard, unknown and unnecessary. The figure that stood before him seemed almost impossible to ignore—it would've been easier to ignore a bomb going off that not pay attention to this form that seemed to pull attention the way gravity pulls everything else in its sphere. Looking away seemed an impossibility and Tsuna found within himself the minutest sliver of envy that there were people born with such innate gift for presence that they could draw focus without even really trying. With rueful twist of his lips, Tsuna wondered why he seemed to be born with this figure's completely opposite gift—he seemed to only gain unwanted attention; that is when he wasn't being completely overlooked by all and sundry._

_The figure stood straight as a ruler but he wasn't rigid, no, there was a fluidity to his stance, a grace that caught the eye and held it. Even in stillness there was a story to be told in his face and form, an aura of motion held arrested but for a moment's pause…there was that sense that once he does move it would be explosive...decisive— **inevitable**._

_His shoulders are straight, firm—not slumped by failure or resignation. His head was held high but not arrogantly so even with the chin tilted as if in constant inquiry or interest. His lips were firmly set, as if they didn't hold the merest suggestion of a smile or a smirk—neither seemed would come with enviable ease. His hands were held casually at his side, not fidgeting at all and his legs and feet were firmly set on the floor—steady and relaxed._

_In every sense of contrast the young man before him bore little in the way of comparison. The figure before him was not one to be trifled with—this was no ordinary being, no commonplace minion or wallflower—easily dismissed and forgotten. No, the young man that stood before him in such fascinating incongruity—with his form clad in shadowy hues, still and steady as ice and his gaze burning like an open pyre—was a resolute and charismatic leader._

_He was thoroughly intriguing to watch if Tsuna did not see the truth in the fierce anger that burned in his gaze._

_It was the only thing that shattered the complete image of stillness and serenity may be found in his gaze. His gaze held all the fierce intensity of a proud lion seeking to intimidate with a mere look—the gaze of an apex predator just waiting to see who would dare poach on their territory so that they may have a convenient excuse to rain havoc on the interloper. There was no yielding to be found in those raging sunset gaze. Only anger. Only silent, smoldering, festering rage._

_True, the rage was admirably reined in. But their gaze while seemingly calm was not warm despite the heat they seem to emanate. There the calm was not tranquil at all but rather like a firestorm held at bay by a fragile pane of glass—it smoldered and burned and refused to be tamed. It was a raging inferno fed by a miasma of emotions…some too dark to contemplate…some too painful to look into too deeply and yet they continue to hiss and burn like a cauldron barely able to contain the sunlit conflagration that threatens to boil out with the slightest provocation._

_In that, Tsuna realized that this figure—admirable and enviable though he may be on the outside—was very much like him. And with this realization in mind, his own racing thoughts steadied and calmed._

_Tsunayoshi knows and accepts readily enough that his body language reads prey—he knew that early enough to find ways to minimize potential exploitation and damage. He did not ooze charm—he barely passed amiable, if he truly considered it. He was painfully shy and wary—a lifetime forged by the harsh realization that his father preferred being away than staying close, being taken advantage of by bullies and being called a demeaning nickname had stripped away any chance for confidence to gain a foothold in his face and form. However—his eyes alone he may be considered favored._

_He knew his eyes well enough to understand that they were still as a chocolate pond. If he had any point of pride they would be this because no matter how much pain and disappointment or fear he may have had to endure—_ **he,** _at least, knows few will be able to tell if they looked in his eyes because his eyes remained like an undisturbed mirror of deep water—serene and fathomless—even during the worse of the beatings and taunts. Whereas Tsuna was betrayed by the tremors and wariness of his body, the figure before him is betrayed constantly by his eyes._

_The young man that stared back at him has eyes like a fiery pyre that's about to die out. His gaze was fiery with helpless frustration, tinged with anger and laced by unspoken grief. His eyes burned similar flames of loneliness and despair but unlike the quiet smolder of Tsuna's own gaze—this seemingly perfect figure—this twisted mirror of himself—his eyes, no, his entire self was slowly being burned out…consumed by anger and poisoned by loss of hope._

_It took him a moment to realize that in spite of the picture he presented…in spite of the alluring form and face…the figure that stood before him looked the way he felt for most of his life—_ **fragile. Breakable. Exposed.** _**Vulnerable** _ **.**

_The young figure in front of him looked like one wrong word…one wrong move…one more moment of indecision would shatter him beyond repair…fracturing him into something that would cause many to weep and despair but no one more so that this figure of himself and Tsuna was so afraid that it would be him that might cause his very fear to come to pass._

**Tsunayoshi…You finally came…**

_Yes…_

**I had hoped…that you will come…**

_I'm sorry…_

**Why are you…apologizing…Tsunayoshi…?**

_Tsuna couldn't help his eyes from tearing up and he raised a trembling hand to cradle the cold cheek that faced him, brushing his thumb gently across the icy, tautly stretched skin of his cheekbones. He felt so helpless standing in front of this twisted image of himself and he couldn't do anything except tell him the truth._

_For making you wait…I think I must've kept you waiting for so long…_

**No…I could do nothing but wait…**

_You shouldn't have to! I-I should've come sooner…I could hear you…but not always…not enough…_

**I know…I tried in dreams but…**

_I wasn't able to understand then…_

**There are times you couldn't hear me—I couldn't make you hear me… My voice couldn't reach you…and** _I grew…frustrated…because I couldn't really understand then…_

**I know…I understand…I know what it's like to feel helpless…but…You came…finally, you're here…**

_Tsuna found himself wrapping the figure in his arms with desperate clutching hands, enfolding the figure before him, drawing him closer to his chest until finally he could lay his head against the cold, broad shoulders that seemed nothing could bend…whispering promises and assurances against the frigid, frozen skin, praying…begging that the heat that once consumed him to flare anew if only so that he could give warmth and heat to this shivering, trembling fragile being in his arms that seemed so real and yet so ephemeral in his embrace…he tightened his grasp, locking his hands behind sharp, well-defined shoulder blades and murmured soothingly…_

_Yes…I'm here now…I'm here…_

**I suppose I have some fault too…I couldn't protect you as often as I should…Forgive me Tsunayoshi…**

_Tsuna shook his head vehemently and raised his head to look straight into the eyes of his mirrored twin. Tsuna who has difficulty even meeting his own eyes in the mirror gazed deeply into the twin orbs staring down at him with fierce, possessive claim and gave a short, sweet smile as he lifted a hand to cradle once more the cheek that was near him. Pushing their foreheads together, even as Tsuna had to rise to his toes to do so, he spoke with quiet, soothing resolve that seemed to echo in the darkness that failed to touch either of them._

_You tried. I'm just stubborn I guess. There were times I didn't listen to you often enough even when you showed up in my dreams! I was too stupid to understand! I still don't! Not really, but I can see you now…and that's what matters, right?_

**Yes…I suppose I should be glad that now…Now…you** _**can** _ **see me Tsunayoshi.**

* * *

_And_ see _him Tsunayoshi did. This uncanny double of his that bore all that he desired and was marked by all he hid from the world. His eyes adjusted to finally see the whole picture and what he saw brought a strangled sob to his throat._

_Whereas he assumed the figure to be standing nonchalantly, his eyes noted the truth. He wasn't standing—he was chained against a dripping wall that oozed a dark miasma that flowed all over the slight frame giving the illusion of the figure being clothed in dark fabric. In truth, his entire body seemed submerged in the obsidian sludge leaving only his face, neck and limbs uncovered. And while they remained free of the clinging darkness, their fragile shape was held in place by thick manacles wrapped around both ankles and wrist…they were the color of blood and connected by thick chains that seemed attacked to something within the black muck._

_The shackle around his neck wrapped around the frail, abraded skin leaving behind a thick scarred line that bled anew with every drawn breath. The exposed limbs too bore many scars…crisscrossing all over until there was barely any part of them that remained unscathed._

_**Where—how-?** _

_Tsunayoshi took a step back to see what else he could've missed when Primo appeared close to him once more. Tsuna started when the man spoke once more._

THEY ARE ALL THE INJURIES YOU HAVE BORNE OVER THE YEARS. WHILE YOUR BODY OUTSIDE THIS REALM HEALED—THE WOUNDS ECHO REMAINED REFLECTED HERE WHERE NO LOVING TOUCH NOR HEALING WARMTH HAS REACHED HIM…AND SO HE WEARS EVERY MARK THAT HAS EVER BEEN AFFLICTED TO THE BOTH OF YOU.

_Tsuna was horrified. All the wounds he has ever received? Every injury? Tsuna recoiled with the thought as every instance of bullying and beating rushed through his mind. He flinched and felt tears running unchecked down his cheek as he turned towards his chained half, shame and regret darkening his usually serene eyes as his gaze traced each and every wound and bruise that formed a morbid, painful collage of his twinself's body._

_**Gods in merciful heaven…how much pain has he been all this time…?!** _

IN THIS WORLD—ONLY YOU AND HIM HAVE THE POWER TO ENACT A CHANGE AND HE HAS NOT HAD BEEN ABLE TO DO MUCH…

_**Me?** _

YES…SO WHAT SAY YOU, DECIMO? DO YOU WANT TO HEAL HIM?

_**Of course! Do you even need to ask me that? Is there a way I could free him too? Tell me what I can do!** _

FREE HIM…? WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT? WHY WOULD YOU GRANT HIM FREEDOM?

_**Why wouldn't I? He's trapped isn't he? He's hurt and god knows how long he's been like that! Of course I want him to be freed and healed and—just please! Tell me what to do to help him. I'm begging you, please!** _

ALRIGHT. IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WISH…BUT DECIMO…NEITHER HEALING HIM NOR ALLOWING HIM FREEDOM WILL COME EASY FOR THE BOTH OF YOU…

_**I expected that.** _

OH…?

_**Nothing in life is. I've learned that early on.** _

YES…I SUPPOSE YOU HAVE…YOU HAVE NOT HAD THE MOST PLEASANT EARLY YEARS DECIMO…I AM SORRY…

_**No, but they could've been worse, you know. I had Mom and now…now, I have my tutor and I guess I have you, too. I also have him, right?** _

THAT'S RIGHT, DECIMO…YOU HAVE US…YOU HAVE ALL OF US…SOON YOU MAY HAVE MORE…

_**Then, that's reason enough right? I have you and he—he needs me right? So, please…Please tell me how to help him…** _

TO FREE YOUR OTHER HALF, YOU, DECIMO SAWADA TSUNAYOSHI, WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR HIS FREEDOM WITH YOUR WILL AND YOUR BLOOD…TO FREE HIM, DECIMO, YOU MUST BLEED…

_**Bleed?!** _

A PAYMENT IN BLOOD FOR BLOOD…YOUR OTHER HALF HAS SPENT HIS EXISTENCE CHAINED AND SILENCED…BEARING ALONE AND UNCOMPLAINING THE BURDEN OF PAIN INFLICTED ON YOUR BODY BY THE OUTSIDE WORLD. WHILE HE TOILED TO PROTECT YOU—HE HAS HAD NO PROTECTION IN RETURN…THAT IS WHY THIS WORLD OF YOURS IS A BURNING INFERNO WITH NOTHING SAVE SHADOWS AND SPITTING EMBERS LEFT IN IT…IT IS BUT A MERE REFLECTION OF YOUR TATTERED CORE BURNING ITSELF OUT...CAN YOU FEEL IT DECIMO…? THE FLICKERING, FLUTTERING BEAT OF THIS FLAME THAT CONSUMED YOUR SHARED WORLD?

_Tsunayoshi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He listened and tried to understand what his other half is saying. There. Like a faint pulsing beat. The heat all around him sputtered and fluttered in accordance with his own stuttering breath and he realized that the impression he had of his other's half's eyes were true—they were like the embers of a fire that's close to dying out._

_**Tell me what to do.** _

_Primo raised a hand and gestured at something behind Decimo. There amidst the swirling shadows sprung a small stone basin encased in flames. The shallow curve of the basin was filled with a liquid that seemed at first golden but as Tsunayoshi looked deeper, he realized that aside from the golden hue the liquid therein swirled with hundreds of other unnamed yet not unfamiliar hues blending to create a liquid that could only be best described like sunset. It was as if someone punctured a portion of the sky when its entirety was swathed by the myriad colors of the rainbow as it is incorporated and absorbed the clouds at that mystical moment when day clings to its last brilliance and the night has yet to gain full possession of the heavens and poured the resulting tears into the stone basin that he now stared into. The liquid within pulsed with its own light, thrumming with the same beat his own heart's quiet, eager throb even as it continued to emit its unearthly beauty as it shimmered like sunset turned into an endless pond of gold and rainbows._

YOU NEED TO CLEANSE HIM DECIMO…WASH AWAY THE TAINT OF PAIN AND ANGER…YOU NEED TO HEAL HIM AS HE HAS NEVER BEEN ABLE NOR ALLOWED TO DO FOR HIMSELF…BUT BE WARNED, DECIMO…IT WILL NOT BE AN EASY TASK TO DO…THIS ACT…IT WILL HURT YOU…

_Tsuna turned luminous eyes the color of sunset towards Primo and gave the man a soft smile, his voice, when he spoke was calm with acceptance._

_**He's been hurt too…that hurts me more…** _

* * *

_The water branded his hand like battery acid. It was so intensely cold, so frigidly, unforgivably icy that Tsuna wouldn't have been surprised if it has stripped off every ounce of flesh and bone from his hand as he dipped it into the shallow pool of shimmering golden liquid. As he pulled back the cloth he dipped into the elixir, he wasn't all that surprised to see him hand scalded like as if he hand plunged it in boiling water that's been laced with every caustic liquid known to man. But the pain, blinding and consuming as it was, was nothing new. **Tsuna has felt pain** …he has felt pain and knew bitterly that pain was easy enough to ignore…injustice…humiliation…degradation…helplessness…loneliness…despair…those were far harder to ignore and overcome. Pain was nothing to Tsuna. It had nothing new to teach him and certainly nothing new to offer him. If pain was the price he must pay to heal his broken half, he would pay it gladly. He has been paying its toll since he first understood that people inflicted that on those weaker and more vulnerable than they were. If pain would free his battered, lonely half, he would gladly consider every gash, every wound, every beating and every humiliating, degrading experience he has ever had as a deposit for the chance to gain back the missing half of his soul._

_For a chance to heal his broken, aching soul, Tsuna would gladly bathe in fire and pain and smile while he does it._

* * *

**Namimori Middle School,** **Monday,two weeks after the start of the new term…**

_**TSUNAYOSHI** _

_**On hindsight, he also didn't tell Reborn that the voice was back and that it was now closer to the surface than ever. It wasn't a completely different voice…no…it was his, after all.** _

He woke up in his bed like usual—aware that for the first time he was listening intently for the voice inside of his head to speak. He wondered about it but he didn't have enough time to think about this newest development before he found himself being kicked down the stairs by his sadistic baby tutor, racing through his bath and breakfast before being frog-marched into school with the smirking instruction to pay attention to his surroundings.

And so here he was, hiding in the grounds, staring at nothing and worrying his scalp into early baldness by the constant running and tugging on his locks by his worried, tensed fingers.

He stared and watched and still there was nothing he could see that was out of place or even wrong. He has been staring for nearly half an hour and still everything seemed normal and ordinary.

But the sense of wrongness prevailed and the phantom whispers inside his head have yet to cease. It was—if he was to be honest—steadily growing…growing more persistent…more panicked…more adamant in their silent screams. The voice might be voiceless but it was far from silent. It demanded an answer to its call, scream its cries all it wants but Tsuna has nothing to offer it…nothing to placate it with because as far as he's concerned there was nothing in his world, his immediate surroundings that he needed to address…His day to day existence lies on the fringes of everyone else's excluding his own mother. His biggest threat is being at the wrong place at the wrong time when bullies had an opening on their itinerary of torture. He wasn't even worthy of a blip for the demon prefect of Namimori to bother with. He didn't see any dangerous character lurking inside the four corners of his room, certainly there was nothing here that could threaten—

**THWACK!**

_There._  There was something. That was it… _that's what he was waiting for._  He didn't know how he knew or exactly what it was he knew. Nothing and everything seem to make sense inside his head and he couldn't for the life of him pinpoint what it was exactly but it was simply that.

_Whatever that was…it was something to do with that sound…_

**"Yo, Yamamoto! You're up early. Morning practice already?"**

**"You betcha."**

" **Lookin good!"**

" **Thanks! Still room for improvement, though!"**

Tsuna didn't know what made him look up. The exchange was common enough. The players involved were the usual classroom cast and the star was one of the blessed ones, the star athlete Yamamoto Takeshi of the baseball team. There was no reason for everything else around him to fade into silence like they've suddenly been sealed in a vacuum—taking the sounds and smell and sensations all around him away, until only he and the athlete remained, everything else around them slowing until only the baseball player remained, held in some mental slow motion inside his head.

Everything about him looked right and yet for some reason, everything just seemed the slightest bit wrong… _out of synch_ …like there was this discordant note that's lying just beneath his easy smiles and cheerful banter. It was there in the faint shadows in his eyes, flickering in and out like piece of cloth snapping in the wind—showing itself one moment and banishing the next. It was in the echoes of his laughter….the ones that sounded so empty… _so cold_ …as if there was nothing in them… _no real humor…no real feeling…no one real…_

The thought flickered and flared in his mind like a sudden flashpoint and vanished just as quickly, leaving behind no trace but for the faintest bitterness coating his tongue and an ache behind his eyes. His mind scrambled to retain that flash of intuition even as it quickly seeped away where all the others went after they made him twitch and fidget for days on end. It lasted but for another heartbeat or two but this time—this time—he actually remembered what the feeling meant.

_**There is something very wrong with the way Yamamoto smiles.** _

* * *

_**Title Translation:** **DUE META DI VOI** **= "**_ TWO HALVES OF YOU _ **"**_


	17. UN FALCO SI ALZA VERSO IL CIELO

**AUTHORS NOTE:**

Isn't this surprising. I certainly am surprising myself. But hey—let's not jinx it right? I'm going to make myself a personal bet with this post, see. I know that I haven't been the most reliable person when it comes to updating so I really—really—have no leg to stand on to make demands. Still, I do need feedback. So I guess I will make this post and hope to the gods I can manage to read at least hm…what's a good number? Okay, let's settle for Tsuna's—twenty seven reviews. If I can get that for this post, I'll post another before the year ends, making it a total of five posts in the span of less than a year. That's not an unreasonable deal, right?

And shout out to  _ **Glorilian**  _and especially for  _ **WrittinInStone**_  who gave me lots of reviews and who commented that he wanted a more interesting façade to Hayato's character. I agree—the anime and the manga failed to make me see why he was chosen as Tsuna's second in command. All it did was show me his tempestuous nature. I wanted this work to bring them all to life and frankly—that's the biggest challenge I've given myself. Finding motivations for why someone is the way they are—creation is really a pain in the ass.

* * *

**_CHAPTER 17_ **

**UN FALCO SI ALZA VERSO IL CIELO**

" _ **No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed**_

_**from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."** _

_Niccolo Machiavelli_

* * *

_**Sawada Residence** _

_**Three days after returning from Talbot…** _

_[and a month before the Yamamoto Encounter]_

"Reborn…?"

"Mind your counting Peanut or else you're going to start over."

Tsuna quickly focused on the sit-ups he had been doing before he caught his Tutor's attention. Quietly counting off until he reached the required thirty repetitions, he tried to broach the silence one more.

"This—my body—feels odd…"

Reborn's eyes when he looked at him was assessing in its sharpness. "Are you in pain?

He shook his head quickly. "No! No pain at all."

Reborn stared for a moment or two before giving a sharp nod and motioned for him to move on to the next exercise he had aligned on in his training menu, one they have been doing since coming home. "Well that should be a good thing for you right? Odd in your case can be kind of reassuring."

Tsuna scratched the back of his head thoughtfully as he moved towards the treadmill—one of the many exercise equipment that showed up in the newly installed training room in the house. It surprised him greatly when he saw it since he was pretty sure they didn't have that room at all when he was taking a tour of his bedroom.

"I don't know if I should…I mean, my body feels and moves funny—or should I say funnier than normal. Something feels off, but not really off, you know? I don't really know how to say it. Is this supposed to happen?"

The dark eyes swung back to gaze at him, the same assessing gaze piercing through him. "Tell me what exactly it is that you find odd."

"Uhm…well my body move's differently—my step feels lighter somewhat. And I don't feel so clumsy and my body—Reborn? What in the world are you laughing you loon!" Tsuna's cheeks were scarlet in indignation at the sight of his guffawing tutor.

Reborn tried to stifle the chuckle that escaped him, much to his utter failure. "Sorry Peanut. You're not off—I mean there's nothing off about you. That's just how people are supposed to feel. You just happened to be deprived of that sensation since you were—what three?"

"My feet feels funny..."

"Can't say I'm surprised you noticed. It's called balance. You're finally regaining it after 12 years without. Don't worry—you have two fun months of pain and suffering to look forward to. You will be subjected to every kind of physiotherapy that could be employed so you can stop trampling around like a demented troll and finally learn some grace."

"Grace?" Tsuna replied skeptically, glancing down at his own sneaker-clad feet. "Me?"

"Well, barring that, I would settle for some coordination. If I must employ runway coaches to teach you how to fucking strut down a straight line marked down on some floor like a thrice damned model then that's what I would do." Reborn rumbled but then he noted the incredulous look on his student.

"Why would I need to learn how to walk like a model? Am going to be modeling?"

Reborn stared at Tsuna before sighing in fond exasperation. "Not a model—we're getting a runway coach—bloody ignorant brat, they're people who train models to walk the right way. I would not have it said that the last scion of a noble and ancient famiglia strides like an escaped caveman on LSD. You must at all times project a certain image—and the current you projects the image that you spent your entire life like an indentured pack mule with a side-order of Neanderthal added to the mix."

Tsuna allowed himself a small smile at his tutor's odd phrasing. "You have such colorful way with words Tutor."

"I can get saltier if that's what you need. I told you already to call me Reborn. I don't need you to constantly remind me what my role is."

Tsuna nodded obediently as he continued pounding his way through the proscribed five mile run. "I suppose there are a lot of things I need to learn. Or is it re-learn?"

"Either ways, you need to do it. Consider the possibilities—you haven't learned a lot of things the wrong way so we don't have a ton of bad habits to unlearn. Don't worry brat, lucky for you, I have a lot of contacts that are experts in a variety of fields. It will take some time for us to get to the point where you need to be, but that's just the way things are—we might as well do a very thorough job of it. I once read the lines in a book and I've never forgotten them—consider it my personal motto of a sorts, if you get my drift."

"What is it?"

"What is worth doing—is worth doing well. In my case it's more like what is worth bothering me to do, is better well be worth my damn well for doing it. Remember that motto brat—because if I tell you that you need to do something—it means that there's a damned good reason for it. I don't like wasting my time and I certainly hate having mine being wasted. I have another motto regarding that."

"What's that?" Tsuna panted out as he continued to run. Reborn's eyes were trained on the small notepad he pulled from his jacket pocket and was busy making notations in his tiny script.

"Above and beyond. I always go above and beyond what's necessary and whenever I get pissed off that's also my reaction."

"Above and beyond?"

"Yep. I go above and beyond. When there's a need for delicate negotiations, then bring a good, reliable gun."

"And when it's not so delicate?"

"Then you bring something else. I mean why use a gun when you can use a grenade launcher right? Creates more of an impact and packs one hell of a first impression." He finished annotating his notes and noted the streak of sweat that lined his student's face. He handed him a bottle filled with Pocari and motioned for him to continue.

Tsuna nodded his thanks and gratefully took a gulp. "Doesn't leave much chance for a second impression though." He gave the bottle back and continued his pace. He noted to his surprise that he only had half a mile to go and he couldn't help the thrill of pride that shot through him at his accomplishment.

"If you need to have a second impression on someone for them to remember you, then I would've failed in my teachings."

"Reborn, that's kinda scary to contemplate. Not everyone could have such a strong impact or impression on everyone they meet. Sometimes, it takes a bit more work you know." He gently chided his tutor who only graced him with one of his looks. When he spoke, his words were laced with resolve and the kind of calm acceptance to a reality that refused to be anything else but unyielding.

"That's kind of the point Peanut. That way may work here in civilized society and by all means, I am all for slow and steady and calm negotiations whenever possible. However, that's not always the way in La Cosa Nostra, I'm afraid so I'm here to teach you how to initiate, inspire and intimidate everyone you'll ever meet in your life."

"All of that?"

Reborn gave a short, sharp nod. "All of that, at the same time and more."

"How? Is that even possible? That's impossible for someone like me, Reborn."

"Everything is possible Little Tuna. It just takes longer for some. Good thing for you that you have me. Don't fret in that fluffy-haired head of yours. That's what I'm here for Peanut. Now get your ass in gear, take a quick wash and then go to your room; your next lesson starts in fifteen minutes."

* * *

_**Lunch time at the Sawada Residence** _

_**Two weeks after coming home…** _

"You're going to need a crew." Reborn spoke apropos of nothing.

Tsuna, sitting down to a delicious lunch of salad and grilled salmon dared to peek at his mentor as he chewed a particularly tasty sliver of the fish, gauging his mood and deciding it was not yet at a critical level before asking.

"A crew? Not an—what's the word—entourage?"

The basilisk-level stare Reborn directed towards his student made the young man squeak in a way he hadn't for days. Nana gave an amused smile towards her son and an indulgent one at the affronted look that graced the hitman's face before placating the clearly mounting temper that the man was about to display by placing a sizable slice of tiramisu before him, clearing away his used dishes and quietly starting the coffee machine to brew him his favored cup of after meal coffee.

Placated somewhat at the promise of caffeine and knowing all too well that the woman did it because she knew him well enough and because they all knew she disliked conflict occurring in her kitchen, especially during meals, Reborn allowed his temper to be reined in by taking a bite of his cake, thereby swallowing down his own tempestuous reply. Once the intense coffee-infused, creamy cheese and chocolate piece of culinary masterpiece hit his tastebuds, his temper was a thing of the past.

He gave his clearly panicking student a smirk before replying.

"An entourage is what self-important morons parading themselves as 'someone' surround themselves with to validate their feelings of self-worth and entitlement. An entourage, Tsuna is what I will punish you with if you choose to include idiots and imbeciles in the roster of personnel you would require to fix your families tarnished, not to mention, frankly annoyingly bloody reputation."

"Wow Reborn—I can practically feel your glee over that plan." Tsuna deadpanned.

The looked in Reborn's eyes made him twitch; chagrined to realize that his sass only served to amuse his sadistic tutor. He quickly rose to his feet, thanking his mother quietly for the meal before proceeding into the living room to sulk. He certainly didn't appreciate his Tutor giving him another bemused smirk as he sauntered in to sit next to him.

"You're a mean, sadistic baby."

"Can it, small fry. Now, your crew. First things first, we need to find you a consigliore to wrangle the drones and an assassin to clean up the occasional hard heads."

Tsuna blinked. "What the-excuse me? A what and a what?"

"A consigliore and a cleaner. Try and keep up, you foolish child, I don't have all day to repeat after myself and if your force me to do it more often than I ought, I will hang you by your toes on the balcony and allow the birds to peck at you all day."

"More often than once you mean." Tsuna clarified, staring warily at the smirking former hitman.

" _See,_  you're learning already." Reborn chuckled. "Whoever said you were a moron of epic proportions should be quartered and hung. Remind me to do that when we have a good amount of time for a bit of sport and relaxation." He cackled even more at Tsuna's affronted snort.

"Your definition of sport and relaxation leaves much to be desired Tutor mine. I don't think my psyche is up to the challenge of keeping up with whatever madness you deem to be entertaining."

"Now, see there—that's sarcasm right there. Who says you're a prissy boring dork? You're finally growing up Peanut."

"You have an altogether alarming tendency towards nicknames Tutor."

"I could always fall back on the classics if you prefer." Reborn offered.

"Classics?" Tsuna inquired.

"Dame Tsuna sound good?"

Waving his hand and shaking his head frantically, Tsuna squeaked. "On hindsight, nickname yourself away. I don't mind the variety. They do say it's the spice of life."

Reborn hummed thoughtfully, eyes gleaming in amusement from beneath his customary fedora. "I thought not. Now come on. Time for us to go hunt ourselves an assassin."

Tsuna couldn't help sputtering in surprise. "An assa—Reborn! Wouldn't it be easier to find the consign—the other one?"

"Learn the terminology before you stutter all over yourself. Remind me to start your Italian tutorials when we get home. The term is Consigliore. Your would-be second in command. Don't worry about that. I have something in cooking in the wings. If all things fall according to schedule, that need will take care of itself. Now, come. We must go and see what offerings we may select from."

"You're making it sound like we're going to scout out a shop and order out an assassin to go."

"Brilliant idea! Come on, I know exactly where we'll find a good quality assassin."

Reborn cackled in glee sending an atavistic thrill of dread up Tsuna's spine and he wondered anew if his mother really, really knew the kind of demon-disguised-as-a-baby she brought into their lives. He was plenty sure he didn't sign some kind of contract nor did he do a summoning but it didn't seem to belie the fact that his house seemed to host a being that seemed tailor-maid to fit to be part in some kind of devilish plot.

Sighing in defeat at the expectant look Reborn cast his way, Tsuna rose reluctantly to his feet, cradling his tutor in his arms carefully and agreed to humor his tutor for whatever convoluted adventure he was planning. There really wasn't much point in resisting anyways and he reasoned he could save his arguments for the really big stuff. Tsuna just never bothered telling himself that he had a feeling he had long abandoned 'big stuff' way back when the hitman was simply using him as target practice for all those weird bullets of his.

"And where exactly does one go to shop for a suitable assassin candidate?"

Reborn tapped his chin thoughtfully before nodding decisively. "Well, if one isn't picky and requires a one-time or contractual killing every once in a while—then the best option would be using any of half a dozen agencies that facilitate independent contractors. They ensure that the personnel would be skilled, professional and reliable."

"Is that where we're off to?"

"No. As I've pointed out—that only works for contract hits or once in a lifetime revenge hits. Your needs requires someone more special and far more skilled than your average contract killer. You need one on a more permanent basis. You don't need some dime-a dozen, run of the mill psycho who would whack on a dime paid by the highest bidder. For you Peanut, we need a more—refined type of killer—a high functioning, relatively amiable sociopath will do nicely."

Tsuna sighed mournfully at this newest sign of his quickly dwindling grasp of normalcy. "I never realized I'd ever have a need for an assassin on retainer. Especially not one that you could label so willy-nilly as being a sociopath no matter how functional or amiable they may be."

Reborn gave a derisive snort as he murmured coolly. "The role of being Head of a Famiglia as old, venerated and fucked up as the Vongola requires a whole asylum full of crazies the likes of which the world has never known. Believe me, little Tuna, your Vongola guardians may yet be the craziest of them all."

Tsuna's shoulder slumped even further. This was so not turning into anything even approaching normal fast. "Great. So where do I go to find this paragon of killing?"

" _Paragon_ —why Peanut, I do believe your vocabulary is improving!" Reborn tugged at a lock of Tsuna's hair and beamed to show his approval. "I told you that word for the day calendar is bound to come in useful. Now, when I first came here I had a bit of time. Bored me a bit you might say. So I decided to scope the place—you never know when good quality personnel or cannon fodder will be needed and I hate being unprepared."

"Oh gods—the idea that you were bored—I would be having nightmares for weeks!" Tsuna shuddered in trepidation and fear. The mere idea would drive him paranoid.

"Shut it, you brat. Well, as I was saying, I had a bit of free time. It just so happens I found one during my first week reconnoitering Namimori. I have several candidates that may perform well enough to fill in for positions as guardians. We'll be meeting up with them within the next few weeks and conducting interviews and auditions of course."

"Reconnoiter? Interview? Auditions?! Reborn what the heck are you planning to do?! I told you, I am not joining the damned Mafia! Reborn! Listen to me—stop smirking at me like that or I will ask Mom not to give you any coffee!" he threatened but catching a look at face of the tiny baby he cradled in his arms made him blanch.

"Do you want to die Little Tsuna-fish?"

"What?! Of course not!"

"Then don't go hostaging my caffeine. Now, get up. Lunch is over and you have more lessons coming up. Time to brush up on your obedience—oops, I mean etiquette lessons."

"Hey! I heard that!" Tsuna screeched. "I knew it! You were using that clicker like as if I was a dog!"

"Don't be silly little Tsuna. Now hop to it, chop, chop! Time for your walk."

_"Reborn!"_

"Ah that reminds me, I need to get some oil and a cleaning clothe."

"What for?" Tsuna blinked, confused at the sudden non sequitur.

"For these."

Tsuna gaped and he knew he wasn't making the most attractive of faces but he dared anyone to blame him. Staring at him from what used to be a simple country scene painted on the wall above the mantle of fireplace was a hidden cache filled with weapons as far as his eyes could see, arrayed in loving detail, in varied shapes and sizes, cheerily displayed as if they didn't represent violence and untold of amount of legal violations from here to up the wazoo.

Tsuna took a deep, gasping breath, his voice trembling even as he started shrieking in surprised outrage.

"What in the world are all these guns doing here!"

"Last line of defense. Don't worry they're coded to my genetic code so no one else could access them even if the house gets breeched."

"That's not my concern right now, but thank you for thinking of that feature! Where in the world did you get all these guns?! You couldn't have gone through customs with that!"

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

"Where—how? How is this possible? Guns are illegal—unless you work for the police or the military! How was it possible for you to even find these things here!"

Reborn gave an unimpressed sniff. "It is possible if you know a blond devil-faced bastard that's obsessed with idiotic ballgames and possesses an unbelievable cache of useful toys he's willing to trade for available funds."

Tsuna could only stare at Reborn in chagrined incredulity. "Where the hell do you find these people?!"

"Where else? The internet."

_**"REBORN!"** _

* * *

_**Narita Terminal** _

_**A week before the new school term starts…** _

**"Flight 2710 from Naples to Tokyo. Approaching Narita for final descent. ETA thirty minutes."**

Gokudera Hayato told himself that fidgeting was a sign of an amateur-a rookie mistake he shouldn't be giving away since he hasn't been a wet-behind-the-ears noob in nearly three years. He was irritated to realize that in the entire time he was giving himself the pithy talk, his hands had decided to rebel by drumming up an entire first movement of the fifth symphony on his seat' armrest. If he could've gone away with it he would've banged his head against the nearest available flat surface but lacking that, he settled for simply cracking his knuckles for a time or two to release the severest case of anxiety to assail him since leaving the security of his erstwhile estranged father's estate.

When he decided to accept his latest assignment, he knew that a lot of things would have to change, least of which was the area in which he had to work in. It wasn't enough that he had a language barrier to overcome, having a brilliant mind for learning and acquiring new information would certainly aid on that front and he had already began his lessons not long after his client's visit. That had been nearly three months ago and he has gained some fluency in his target's language—not enough to pass for a native, that's for damn sure, but enough to navigate his way through the most basic of interactions.

It was also around that time he contacted his identity broker and began the delicate negotiation of settling what the paranoid cyber-rat wanted for the travel papers he would need for his newest hit. The man certainly lived up to his moniker—he was sly, cunning and just this side of disturbing in a really unnerving way with his dark rabid eyes that darted warily every minute or so.

It wasn't easy setting up an appointment with the man since by any conceivable definition, he had no office to speak of. His place of business was an abandoned tunnel where hobos liked to stay in during the more austere of weathers. It was there that he would, on occasion, haunt when potential clients had need of his services.

The only way to set up a meeting was to know that he has a code—hobo-speak to say the least—that allowed him to know when someone was buying. He would then send a link through the client's email. Usually, he'd set up the final consult in one of the man café's that may be found on the island's tourist-heavy area.

Ironically enough, the man set up meeting at one of his usual perches. It was the same café where he met his client.

Predictably, the man set a price well over anything even approaching reasonable. Hayato tried for the first ten minutes to rein in his temper and not give in to the urge to pull out one of his beloved little creations and test out how much splatter would occur when a considerable amount of gunpowder was placed inside a currently breathing mobile sack of protein.

[Flashback]

" _What brings you seeking my humble services little lost boy?"_

_He resisted the urge to snort. As if that particular term hasn't been used on him ad nauseum since he started working._

" _I need papers."_

_The rat sneered when he failed to react. "Everyone needs papers these days. Question is do you have what it takes to properly persuade an artist like me to create."_

" _Would I come here if I didn't?"_

" _Fine! What do you want?"_

_Cantankerous rodent. He wondered what the idiot would do should he introduce several of his body's orifices to his own explosive creations. The thought brought a smirk to his lips that widened even more when he noticed the paling pallor of his audience._

" _Have a care for how you speak to your client, Rat."_

_The rat shot him a look before opening his ledger and resuming their conversation with a dead monotone. His hand cradling incongruously an expensive fountain pen, was poised above a blank page_

" _Fine. Requirement."_

" _Care package. Finance, travel, residence, identity."_

_The pen wrote seemingly gibberish on the page but Hayato knew enough about the business that it was a cipher that only the broker understood. It was a way of protecting both the broker and the client should the unfortunate ledger find its way to hands other than their actual owner._

" _New name on the papers?"_

" _No, current."_

" _A move?"_

" _Assignment."_

_The broker gave out a low whistle. "Pricey. Very pricey. And what corner of the world are you slinking off too, pretty boy?"_

_Another nickname he had grown immune to. The men he had worked with in the past seemed filled with those who adore giving nickname to everything and anything they see. For some indefinable reason, they just can't seem to settle on remembering plain names; they had to embellish it with an alias lest they forget._

" _Japan. Namimori."_

" _Nippon? A very expensive city to move it to, unless you're settling in the burbs but then again what decent client would hide there, right? Never heard of Namimori though. If you're planning to blend in, you shouldn't choose small towns. Akihabara, Shinjuku-those areas won't even blink at your coloring."_

_Hayato let his brow cock in inquiry. "Am I asking for your opinion or advice?"_

_The rat gave him another sneer before giving him a smile that seemed more oily and rotten a corpse that may be found drowning in an oil-slick._

" _You want to stick out like a sore thumb, hey be my guest. Two hundred fifty thousand lire for the standard care package. Payment before delivery."_

_This time, he allowed his temper to show by straightening his spine and pinning the sneering rat with a glare._

" _I'm asking for papers, not bequeathing you my last will."_

_The rat noted the glare but he refused to give in. The brat may be a tad worrisome but is not even the most frightening client he had had in his career and he refused to be intimidated by an unaffiliated whelp who think he can play in the big leagues just because some other low-level minion working in the Underworld gave him a half-way decent sobriquet. A broke, poor client without a budget doesn't frighten him and he gave the young man a sneer._

' _That's the going rate for what you need, street rat. Take it or leave it. I provide a much needed service here and if you cannot afford it, get out and don't let the door hit you on your pretty ass when you go."_

" _The price you quoted is not acceptable."_

_The broker gave a lecherous grin as he let his eyes look thoroughly at his clearly annoyed client._

" _It is when I say it is. Now, unless you wish to offer something else on the table, as a means of discount, then maybe we can negotiate—!"_

" _I'm not selling my ass for papers or for anything, especially not to you."_

" _They all say that. It's only a matter of time before they all come crawling back in here, ready to promise anything, trade anything for a chance at a new start."_

" _No. Negotiate."_

" _Now, why should I do a dumb thing like that? There's no reason for me to do that and no profit in it. And as you so succinctly pointed out-you're in no frame of mind to provide me with proper incentive."_

_Hayato snorted before a hand reached into his jacket, his eyes noting the dilation and panic in the broker's eyes. He let the man squirm for a minute before withdrawing a slim cigarette and placing it between his lips. He produced a matchstick from his sleeve and struck it with thumbnail, igniting it and using the resulting wick of flame to light his smoke all while never breaking his glare at the staring rat._

" _Perhaps this might do."_

_[Flashback end]_

When the rat insisted on charging him through the nose for the price of the project, Hayato pulled out a card and flicked it towards the rat's nose. The slime-bucket masquerading as a human being actually had the guts to sneer at him and the card—that was until he saw the sigil on it and realized exactly who it belonged to. Negotiations after that became infinitely easier as the obstreperous and odious man-rat finally settled for what amounted to little more than a pittance for the cost of the care package he needed.

* * *

His arrival to the town was as discreet as he had promised the contractor. He navigated his way from Narita unto a seemingly endless transfers of buses and trains until he managed to reach the town proper of Namimori. It was a small, obscure town and for a moment he almost felt offended by its idyllic peacefulness and serenity.

For someone who has had to live a rather tumultuous existence of late, the normalcy of the entire town seemed more like a slap and an insult to the decayed, deprived world he had had to inhabit until late. It made him feel like he was tainting the place somehow with his history and it set his nerves on fire and his skin itching like mad.

But it was an assignment and he has endured worse. This is just one more stepping stone, just another hurdle he needed to clear until he could reach his goal.

With that thought, he stepped off the taxi that brought him to what would be his domicile for the next week and carefully assessed his surrounding, keeping an eye out for a particular delivery that should've arrived before him.

He approached the small hostel with barely any sign of trepidation and with his passable grasp of the language negotiated a lease for the next seven days and graciously paid for his stay in advance. The payment has already been covered by the recruitment fee he had received from his contractor.

He received his key and was quietly following the hostel’s manager to what would be his rooms for the first leg of what he hoped was a more extended and permanent assignment when his attention was caught by the front desk clerk after the manager introduced him as the hostel’s newest tenant. With a sigh of relief, he noted a thick envelop that bore the broker's couriering service waiting for him at the hostel’s concierge. He reached out eagerly for the package after ensuring that neither the manager nor the clerk would recall anything distinctive about the package save for its ubiquitous coloring that mimicked a more familiar international courier service.

Once inside his room, he tossed his bag onto the narrow bed before moving to secure all the windows and the doors with the thin wires that he always carried on his person. Though he knew that he couldn’t make permanent installations on his room regarding his security, he could fashion more portable means whilst he prepares for what would be his more permanent domicile.

Satisfied with his cobbled-up security, he quickly inspected the package he received. The care package consisted of a bankcard, a small ring of keys, a set of ID cards, and more forged travel documents that would safely see him through two international airlines and customs and replace the ones he used to travel this time around. The name he used to travel to Japan was the previous alias he used on a single job and he was cagey enough to ensure that it would never be used again. The identity would vanish in Tokyo and that would be the end of it. No mess, no fuss.

The new bankcard that he cradled idly in his hand contained most of what Hayato had managed to squirrel away from every job he had had over the years. Of course, there was still some left over that he had left at strategic safe locations just in case he needed to run, but for the most part, the largest bulk of his funds were transferred from his offshore accounts to the tiny town bank where he would reside.

Upon his arrival to his new location, he found out that the additional keys opened to a basement room that was no more than ten feet across if it was an inch, located conveniently below a green-grocer and a leather repair shop somewhere in the town square, just a few blocks away from the local high school. The combined scents from both businesses certainly aided in concealing any lingering and tell-tale scents from his favored form of protection. He would make a more permanent move there once he manages to secure his ‘crafting’ supplies.

The ID cards bore his name—he figured it fit best here of all places and though his neighbors did give second and even third looks at the color of his eyes and hair, they were polite enough to not remark upon it. That, at least was something to be regarded in favor of his new locale. Well, barring the fact that he couldn't find decent coffee and that if he decided to do, he would have to contemplate the idea of doing so by eating nothing but cup ramen for the next foreseeable months. It also included transfer papers and forged school records that would allow him to transfer without any difficulty. It was the reason he came sooner; genius though he may be, he still needed the time to brush up on the curriculum and make sure that he would not be struggling with the class material.

After all, while his contract pay for this was guaranteed only so far as being paid to relocate and pretty much uproot his entire life from where had had been for the past three years. It didn't guarantee that something more viable might turn up.

The client only mentioned that if he would be chosen the contract would naturally merge into a membership into the famiglia and a permanent position barring death or banishment. Should that happen, he would be set for life and he could finally stop scrounging around for every measly lire, working from job to job for every cheap famiglia with a lack of grunt to work to the ground or sketchy character with delusions of playing mob boss for however long it lasts or how much many they're willing to spend for their latest diversion.

However, should the job not pan out, he would be given notice that he has been made redundant plus a generous severance pay. And while the money would be a welcome bonus—he hated that he had that word hanging over his head like a proverbially cursed sword of Damocles.

 **Redundant.** How he loathed that word. That was what he was in his former family. What he had been made to feel in his estranged father's estate. He was the redundant offspring, neither heir nor spare. His legitimacy and privileges reliant upon his father's mood and influence; his place in the world an indulgence afforded to him due to the fact that his father's word in the mansion and their tiny corner of the country amounted to what was law. Discovering the truth behind who he was didn't solve any long term problems he had but it did give him the push to set himself free from the gilded cage where the man who sired him and lied to him kept him like a prized pet, allowing him brief contacts with his own mother under the guise of a well-loved tutor whose passing he had mourned until he overheard those infernal gossiping maids who didn't have a single bone of decency among them.

He confronted his father, of course. He knew his temper and he knew early on that his emotions fed them like gasoline to an open flame. The man had the gall to tell him that it was a tragedy but there was simply nothing he could do anymore.

**Nothing.**

The man who sired him and hid the truth from him tried to comfort him by saying that there was nothing else that could be done. As if he hadn't spent a lifetime yearning for the presence of his mother. Twelve years of living, thinking and believing that his mother had perished during his birth—that he would never know his mother's love, destined to have only his father's distant and absent-minded affections to tide him through life—and then finding out that the woman he had adored as his piano tutor had been his own mother all along only when Death has already lay claim and she was beyond his power to save.

**Nothing.**

That was what he said and how true it was. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could do—for her. But there was plenty he could do for himself. Beginning with treating his father the same way he treated his mother's fate.

As if  ** _he_** was nothing.

And so on that day, he left his father's home and everything it represented. If in that house his own mother's life—and certainly her death—meant less than nothing, then there was nothing there to keep him.

He would be, as she was to him— ** _nothing._**  He would become something else. He would be someone else. He refused to be tied to anything of his anymore. He had already played that role for twelve years. The rest of his life was not his to command or control anymore.

He was no longer his son. He was done playing that part. This time around  ** _he_**  would be  ** _her_** son.

And soon, after this latest assignment has been completed and his future made even more secure, he would show his old man. He would wipe away ever trace of that famiglia that labeled his mother as nothing more than a mere inconvenience.

Soon…he will have the means to turn everything that his father and his famiglia valued into the very thing his mother had been in their eyes— **NOTHING.**

* * *

**Title Translation: _UN FALCO SI ALZA VERSO IL CIELO = "A HAWK RISES TO THE SKY"_**


End file.
